Google has started to use the WebP format images on many of its websites like Google Play. This is being done because WebP images are smaller in size and therefore are faster to load, resulting in fast acting websites. But now if you try to save an image on any of these Google sites, it is saved in the WebP format. Since WebP format is not so popular for images yet, you may find it very hard to open these images in Windows Photo Viewer. As a workaround, you can add an option to save all the images in the popular PNG format using the Save Image As PNG extension.
You can download and install the Save Image As PNG extension from the Google WebStore. The extension does not add any icons or shortcuts in the Google toolbar. But it adds an item for the right-click context menu for all the images on any webpage. So now when you right-click on any image on any webpage, you would see a new item Save Image As PNG which you can use to save the images in the PNG format.
The Save Image As PNG extension uses the HTML5 Canvas to convert the selected image into the PNG format and then downloads it. This means that no external or remote image converter is used – everything is done right inside your browser. This extension is designed in such a way that it can be used on all types of images, not only the WebP images. If you know a little programming, then you can alter the extension source code and make it save the images in the JPEG format instead of the PNG format. HTML5 Canvas can handle the JPEG, PNG and WebP image formats easily.
If you are a little brave and want to save the images in the WebP format, then you would need an image viewer capable of opening the WebP images. You can use the free IrfanView image viewer that can handle almost all the image formats possible in the world.
You can visit https://chrome.google.com/webstore/ to install Save Image As PNG extension.