CompuServe introduced the bitmap image format GIF in 1987.
GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format. CompuServe released it on June 15, 1987, primarily to provide a practical color-image format for files users downloaded through its online service. It replaced an earlier black-and-white run-length encoding approach and was designed to work efficiently over slow modem connections.
The first version was called GIF87a. A later revision, GIF89a, arrived in 1989 and added features including animation delays, transparent background colors and application-specific metadata. GIF files can store images using palettes of up to 256 colors and can contain multiple frames, which is why the format became famous for short looping animations.
GIF is often confused with JPEG, PNG or BMP, but those formats were developed separately and have different strengths. GIF uses lossless compression and limited palettes; JPEG is usually better for photographs, while PNG is better for full-color lossless graphics and transparency.