Are JPG images different from JPEG images and why do they have different names?

Are JPG images different from JPEG images and why do they have different names?

If you deal a lot with images, you certainly know many different formats such as WebP, PNG, and many others, but every time you reach the JPG and JPEG image formats, you are very surprised because the names of the two formats are very similar, and you may wonder if the two formats are similar, and what is the reason for the difference in name?

- Are JPG images different from JPEG images?

Unfortunately, we say that both images are the same thing and there is no difference at all except for the name! In fact, you can verify for yourself by going to a JPEG image and deleting the letter E and you will find that the image works normally, unlike adding another format so that it does not work except when converting using specialized programs.

The fact that the two images are similar does not mean that there is not a slight difference, and you certainly know it is the name. As for the word JPEG, it is an abbreviation for the word Joint Photographic Experts Group, which is the group that created this widely used format.

- Why are JPG and JPEG named differently?

Now that you realize that the difference is only in the name, you might ask why is there such a difference? To answer this question, let's go back to 1992 where we saw the birth of the JPEG format as it appeared at the time of using the well-known MS-DOS operating system.

The reason for dropping the letter E was really funny! The thing is that the operating system at that time only supported suffixes consisting of 3 letters, so the format JPG was sufficient instead of JPEG, however, Apple Macintosh systems used the JPEG designation without any problems because it did not impose restrictions on the number of letters in the format.

After Microsoft's operating system improved and Windows began to appear, it returned to using the JPEG format while also keeping the JPG format. However, those who used the Macintosh were the first to try the JPEG format.