The reduced quality images is now live in production. To see it for
yourself, compare original
<http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cb/Buildings_of_Bedford_Road_Historic_District%2C_Armonk%2C_NY.jpg/1024px-Buildings_of_Bedford_Road_Historic_District%2C_Armonk%2C_NY.jpg>
with low quality
<http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cb/Buildings_of_Bedford_Road_Historic_District%2C_Armonk%2C_NY.jpg/qlow-1024px-Buildings_of_Bedford_Road_Historic_District%2C_Armonk%2C_NY.jpg>
images
(253KB => 99.9KB, 60% reduction).
The quality reduction is triggered by adding "qlow-" in front of the file
name's pixel size.
Continuing our previous discussion, now we need to figure out how to best
use this feature. As covered before, there are two main approaches:
* JavaScript rewrite - dynamically change <img> tag based on
network/device/user preference conditions. Issues may include multiple
downloads of the same image (if the browser starts the download before JS
runs), parser cache fragmentation.
* Varnish-based rewrite - varnish decides which image to server under the
same URL. This approach requires Varnish to know everything needed to make
a decision.
Zero plans to go the first route, but if we make it mobile, or ever site
wide, all the better.