GetCompress - Lossless media compression without context switching

@petersamokhin congrats on the launch !

I definitely relate to the "just let me drop a file, compress it, and move on" workflow. It's one of those tasks that should take seconds but somehow ends up breaking your flow.

One thing I'm curious about: among your early users, what file type surprised you the most in terms of compression results? Was there a format where people consistently said, "I didn't expect it to shrink that much without noticeable quality loss"?

Also, the MCP integration is a nice touch. Feels like a natural fit as more AI workflows start handling media.

Wishing you a fantastic launch!

@danshipit thanks a lot, I've been cooking hard on every pixel 👨‍🍳

@martin_mo thanks a lot! The app is fully local, no network access is required after installation 🔐

@byalexai bro idk what compression does it use, all code was removed in order to get rid of bugs!

Re: serious note, it's balanced by doing a lot of hard work on testing it & optimizing & using hundreds of test files, to ensure all input and output formats perform great! There are many tricks, and if you dig deeper, there are always additional params & optimizations which people often miss (and which Claude won't tell you even with an advanced prompt!)

The compression logic is open-source btw: https://github.com/getcompress/extensions

The 3rd party tools like FFmpeg are also built publicly, which is how I endured to support more advanced params & codecs, and e.g. make it possible to use Apple native VideoToolbox to improve it even further: https://github.com/getcompress/media-tools-binaries

@stanislau_zamana this one was unexpected 🫢

To be honest, I didn't plan on the mobile apps, as I mainly aimed to improve and speed-up frequent compression flows (which is easier & best done from your laptop, Mac or Windows), but I'll definitely consider it for the future!

@artstavenka1 I see a pro here, thanks for asking!

You can control Apple native handling in settings, and switching to x265 is just one click (see screenshot), but also I added a lot of smart logic, that depends on the file format, and might try different fallback settings in order to get the smallest file possible ✨

@aleksei_martoias you are not gonna believe me but it's already available there, both ARM and x64 👀

@andrasczeizel hi Andras, thanks a lot for your comment!

You can control the quality by choosing the predefined presets, or set up e.g. target file size, or if you prefer you can even select some advanced settings (such as media codec, frame rate and almost anything else!)

After you apply your desired settings, you can save that preset and reuse it later:

@itruf thanks a loooot!

The compression logic is open-source and is available here: https://github.com/getcompress/extensions/tree/master/packages/extension-gif-optimizer

If you create a GIF from video, it's first converted using optimized approaches (with advanced colour palette for it to look fancier!)

Then (or initially, if you already had a GIF), it's compressed using an in-house developed tool that handles lossy compression in a way similar to lossy PNG compression: adaptive color quantization, weighted histogram, dithering, palette posterization and deduplication... many buzzwords but the point is that it's a very optimized and stable algorithm that helps making the GIFs look great but have a small file size!

@racine_g hey, thanks a lot for asking my favourite question!

There are many aspects that help reaching the best compression levels on the market, and I'm happy to share the secrets... just kidding: all compression logic is actually open-source, because GetCompress' main focus is your best UX! See it here: https://github.com/getcompress/extensions

Just a few examples:

• Videos: not just simple params like CRF are blindly used, but instead I carefully tested each format and made sure all advanced settings are applied, aiming at the fastest compression and smallest file sizes. For example, if you want a WebM video that will be fastest to load in your blog, the best codecs and compression params will be selected. Or, if you have a MacBook, you can benefit from Apple native VideoToolbox

• PDFs: any image-heavy files are analyzed in a smart way (e.g. detecting actual non-transparent images and any unnecessary info) and images are compressed separately (for example, lossy PNG compression is unbeatable!). I also did it myself (unlike competitors that use GhostScript and violate their open-source license that way!), so now even the edge cases like PDFs with form fields are handled carefully & not broken

• Images: an in-house utility compresses even PNGs, in a lossy way, with veeery smart algorithms applied!

• GIFs: multi-step logic that utilizes FFmpeg, Gifsicle and an in-house tool for even better lossy compression

I can dive into more details if you're interested!