One of the reasons why many users prefer to compress their files is because of the fact that the compressed files require less space than the usual. One good example of this is when you compress your documents as ZIP or RAR. Apart from this, you can also opt to use various data compression techniques in order to reduce the file size of your images while maintaining their quality. Speaking of which, there’s another web app that you can use to compress your large image files and it’s called Compressor.io.

What is it and what does it do

Main Functionality

Compressor.io is a web-based application that you can use to compress and optimize your images. This tool supports four different image file formats which include JPEG, PNG, SVG and GIF. The web app can compress these images in two different ways – lossy and lossless. Anyhow, both methods can greatly reduce the file size of your image but you won’t even notice the difference. So if you want to compress your image files, just upload them to Compressor.io and it will do the rest of the work. You will then have the option to download and save the compressed to your hard drive, Google Drive or Dropbox account.

Pros

• Very nice user interface – neat, well-designed, responsive and stable
• User-friendly – supports drag and drop, no log-in or user registration required
• Fast file conversion
• Offers three ways to save your compressed image files – save to hard drive, Dropbox or Google Drive
• Features both lossy and lossless types of data compression
• Supports four different file types – JPEG, PNG, SVG and GIF
• Can reduce the file size of your images by up to 90% with very minimal quality loss
• You can upload unlimited number of images for as long as they don’t exceed the file size limit of 10MB

Cons

• The web app’s current version still lacks support for bulk upload and offline mode

Discussion

Why compress your images when you can use the original? Well, the answer to that is simple. The file size of a compressed image is much smaller than the original but if you compare both images, you won’t be able to tell the difference. To compress an image file, you will basically need a reliable image editor but what if you don’t have one? Well, in this case, you can always rely on Compressor.io to compress and optimize your image files.

Speaking of which, Compressor.io currently supports four image formats – JPEG, PNG, SVG and GIF. Since this web app is purely web-based, you will need to upload the image that you want to compress to its homepage. After which, you can choose whether to compress your image file in lossy or lossless image format. Each format has its own advantages and disadvantages. It’s up to you select the type of data compression that you think would be  best suited for your image or photo.

After uploading your file, Compressor.io will automatically upload and process your image to its servers. Depending on how large your photo is, it will usually take less than a minute for the web app to compress your image file. After that, it will redirect you to the page where your compressed image is being displayed. You may then choose to download and save the compressed image to your computer, Dropbox or Google Drive.

Anyways, what I like most about this online image compression tool is that it flaunts a well-designed and responsive UI. It’s visually pleasing plus it certainly does what it is intended to do without any glitch or error. I’ve also tried to compress some images using this web app and it easily compressed a 4.36MB JPEG image to 716.33KB. You can also compare the original and the compressed picture by simply dragging the line on its preview screen. As for the photo that I’ve used as sample, the overall quality of the image wasn’t affected. If you’re just gauging both photos based on appearance, then it will be really difficult to tell the difference.

All in all, I can say that Compressor.io is a very reliable image compression tool. What I like most about it is that it isn’t limited to one image format. It supports SVG, GIF, PNG and of course, JPEG. It also flaunts a very nice UI plus it’s fast, stable and responsive. It may lack the option for bulk upload and offline use but these features are said to be included in the web app’s future releases. Apart from this, I also like the fact that this tool has a larger limit in file size.

Conclusion and download link

Compressor.io is a very decent tool for image compression. Since it’s a web app, you don’t need to download or install anything. It’s very convenient to use plus it can easily compress your images with very minimal quality loss. Furthermore, this web tool flaunts a nice and responsive user interface with image preview and comparison. You can also choose whether to download and save your photos to your computer, Dropbox or Google Drive. So go ahead and feel free to give it a try.

Price: Free

Version reviewed: N/A

Requires: Works on any web browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, etc.)

Compressor.io homepage