Is that a 138meg .gif
![Cheesy](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/cheesy.gif)
As awesome as I think memes are, I think we can leave behind file formats from 1987 (36 years old in 9 days) that have been superseded. Definitely deserves a cap, Imgur I had thought did this a while back but not retrospectively perhaps; probably its showing up as an disproportionate load to bear.
The fact that it's 36 years old and still in use, means it's a good thing to keep. I recently
tested it, and for the right images it still produces smaller files than .png. So let's keep .gif
![Smiley](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/smiley.gif)
And don't forget that GIF is a framed image file, which is used to create moving images. So it turns out to be a different file type than a PNG or JPEG.
Now, speaking of history...
![Roll Eyes](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/rolleyes.gif)
JPEG was created in 1992
And PNG was created in 1996
Another curiosity is that the PNG was created because of copyright issues with the GIF. The GIF files had used the LZW compression technique which was patented by another company. This has led to many companies having to pay to use GIF files. Only private individuals or non-profit institutions could use the GIF without paying.
That happened in 1994. At the time, GIF was the most used type of image on the internet, it took up less space than JPG and had adequate quality for the time. All this patent problem, motivated several developers to work on a new image format, which was able to compress images more and with better quality, the PNG. The next step was for browsers to accept this new format, which thanks to Microsoft and Netscape, with their browsers, made PNG become popular on websites.
At that time, two interesting online movements emerged:
"Burn All GIFs" - What motivated people to stop using the GIF and how to send thousands of emails to the company that had the patent.
"PNG's not GIF" - Which motivated people to use PNG instead of using GIF.
In 2004 the patent ceased to be valid and everyone can freely use GIFs.
Perhaps this was one of the first moves against patent lobbying done online.