Install flif with Homebrew

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• apng2flif
• dflif
• flif
• gif2flif
• viewflif

Project history

The project presented FLIF as a still-image and animation-capable lossless format that outperformed PNG, FFV1, lossless WebP, lossless BPG, and lossless JPEG 2000 in compression ratio according to its own documentation.

FLIF's reference implementation included command-line conversion tools, a decoder library, and a viewer example. The repository shipped build instructions for Linux, Windows, and OS X and linked users to release binaries and a Snap package.

Adoption history

FLIF attracted ecosystem experiments around viewers, browser polyfills, GUI converters, Qt and Windows Imaging Component plugins, JavaScript and Rust bindings, and Node.js wrappers, all listed by the official README as related projects.

The format remained a package-manager curiosity rather than a web standard: it was packaged in Homebrew and Snap, but the official project now directs attention to JPEG XL as the successor.

How it is used

The package provides the flif command-line encoder/decoder plus helper tools such as gif2flif and apng2flif. Users generally used it to test lossless compression ratios, convert PNG/GIF/APNG inputs, or inspect FLIF's progressive rendering behavior.

FLIF's progressive interlacing meant partial file prefixes could produce usable lossy previews, a feature that made it interesting to image-format researchers and compression hobbyists.

Why package nerds care

FLIF is significant as a transitional compression project: its ideas fed into FUIF and then JPEG XL, so package histories often treat it as part of the path from experimental lossless image formats to a more broadly standardized successor.

For package maintainers, FLIF is also a snapshot of format experimentation before wide adoption: useful binaries, library pieces, and plugins existed, but upstream development explicitly stopped.

Timeline

• 2015: v0.1-alpha was published on GitHub.
• 2016: v0.2 and v0.2.2 releases followed.
• 2017: v0.3 was published.
• 2021: v0.4 was published.
• Later: The README was updated to state that FLIF development had stopped and that JPEG XL superseded it.

Related projects

• Direct successors named by the project are FUIF and JPEG XL, with JPEG XL described as based on a combination of Pik and FUIF.
• Officially listed ecosystem projects include Poly FLIF, UGUI: FLIF, flifcrush, libflif.js, flif.rs, FLIF Windows Codec, qt-flif-plugin, go-flif, flif-wasm, and node-flif.

Sources

• https://api.github.com/repos/FLIF-hub/FLIF/releases
• https://flif.info/
• https://flif.info/spec.html
• https://github.com/FLIF-hub/FLIF