AVIF Support | New WordPress 6.5 Feature

Update:

So, we did some testing and came up with the following answers:

1. No. You’re plugin does not create a WEBP version of the uploaded AVIF image. It should.
2. The uploaded AVIF image is retained (not replaced by a WEPB image).
3. The uploaded AVIF image is displayed on the front end by all major browsers with no issues. However, our htaccess file had be updated to ensure the MIME type “image/avif” was properly defined for the uploaded image. The htaccess rule we added is provided below.
4. Waiting for Team SiteGround to add AVIF support to Speed Optimizer (best option for sites hosted by SG).

If SG Support would like to add more information to the above and/or help in any other way, that would be great.

Thank you!

——————–

htaccess Rule:

# BEGIN Add Mime Type for Avif Images
<IfModule mod_mime.c>
AddType image/avif avif
AddType image/avif-sequence avifs
</IfModule>
#END Add Mime Type for Avif Images

Hello @generosus,

Thank you for your question as well as the results of your tests. Allow me to start by mentioning that both – AVIF and WEBP are highly efficient image formats which are developed to provide lossless image quality with small image sizes at the same time. As such, they should be used one or the other. Currently, there is not a direct support for AVIF in our Optimizer plugin. We are still evaluating the most appropriate implementation for such support and it will be announced in the future release notes.

On the other hand, on our servers, support for AVIF works out of the box with PHP Version 8.1 or higher and WordPress 6.5. With this combination, you should be able to use AVIF images in your site without any additional code updates in your .htaccess file.

Regards,
Plamen.M
Tech Support Team
SiteGround.com

Hi Plamen,

Thanks for that! In response:

With this combination, you should be able to use AVIF images in your site without any additional code updates in your .htaccess file.

The .htaccess rule is necessary. Here’s why:

Without the rule, we get this: https://prnt.sc/yhujaIt3YVJZ
With the rule, we get this: https://prnt.sc/72W4E3To93Wy

Highly recommend SiteGround perform a few tests at their end using WebPageTest (or similar) to confirm the above and adjust its server or plugin code, as applicable.

Specifically, this is what we recommend (please consult your developers).

Again, thank you.

Note: Please consider pinning this topic ??

Hi @plamenm,

Can you provide an update for this? You should be able to replicate our finding.

Thank you!

Hi there!

Any updates? When does SiteGround plan to fix this?

Thank you!

Hello @generosus ,

I Installed a fresh instance of WordPress 6.5.5. I set the PHP Version to PHP 8.2. Then I uploaded an .avif image to the fresh site without any edits to the default .htaccess file. The Firefox browser properly showed the image and inspecting it properly shows the type as an avif image:

https://prnt.sc/9xuVDnW8NH4Y

The inbuilt avif support is working as expected when the latest versions of WordPress are running on our server with PHP 8.1 and above set for the site.

If you continue facing issues, please post a support ticket through the Helpdesk section in your User Area account with SiteGround. We can then check the issue directly on the site where you see it occurring.

Thank you.

Regards,
Plamen.M
Tech Support Team
SiteGround.com

Hi @plamenm,

[EDITED]

Issue solved.

So we re-ran several tests using webpagetest and other seo analyzers to verify the MIME Type for Avif images is properly captured.

Good news! It appears SiteGround developers did fix the issue reported earlier (confirmation).

Thank you!