Microsoft is finally beginning to add support for AVIF format to Edge. AVIF or AV1 Image File Format is an image encoding based on the AV1 video codec, and just like the AV1 codec, AVIF is said to deliver more efficient encoding compared to other more common image formats. For example, Vimeo found that AVIF received higher Video Multimethod Assessment Fusion (VMAF) score compared to WebP and JPEG.
Google Chrome became the first to support AVIF in its browser with Chrome 85, Mozilla became second when it added compatibility for the feature in Firefox 93 back in October 2021. This was followed by Google in 2022, when Chrome 103 received AVIF image support. This was soon followed by Safari with version 16.0 in iOS 16.
Twitter user and prolific leakster Leopeva64 managed to enable AVIF on Edge Canary. Hints of the change were first noticed earlier this year in February. The leaker posted a screenshot of an AVIF demo test image running on the libre-software.net/image/avif-test/ website.
When running the same test image on Edge version 112.0.1722.48 stable release, the image goes to the fallback JPEG format:
AVIF support is currently not available by default on Edge Canary. Users who want to enable the feature may be able to do so using the command line flag "--enable-features=msEdgeAVIF".
However, bear in mind that it is an unfinished feature that is still work-in-progress, and hence, it may not work as intended on your browser, which is perfectly fine. What this means is that AVIF support in the final stable version of Edge shouldn"t be too far away now, given that support for the format is arriving on Canary.
Source: Leopeva64 (Twitter)