PNG or GIF?

I have absolutely no idea where to ask this question, so I've come here for help. I like to make sprites, but I've been saving all of them in the GIF format. It has come to my attention that PNG can also do transparencies and animations, but I can only save my animations in GIF anyway (I use Jasc Animation Shop). If this is all painfully obvious to you guys, I'll just say sorry in advance, but I've just had to learn as I go.

Anyway, I have tested both formats out, but the only difference seems to be file size. Which format is best for saving transparencies? I've tried to read up on the differences, but every single god damn article is in crazy nerd talk, so it tends to go over my head at times. I hope someone might respond here.

>>14
10-20% often isn't much of a big difference, no. For the type of graphics I'm arguing that GIF is useful for (no transparency, 256 colour) it's doubtful you're going to have anything large enough for the PNG compression to mean anything, and the second you put a photo JPEG or anything else on a page you've probably already dwarfed that tiny size advantage to be even more of a moot point. I value small webpages, but I don't see "GIF bloat" as a significant factor in any webpage sizes.

As for colours, yes, colours on the web are shitty and hard anyway, but I'm just saying it's another disadvantage of PNG compared to GIF. My point is not that GIF is superior to PNG, but that PNGs advantages in these low-colour no transparency images are small compared to the compatibility advantages of GIF which works everywhere (including old old browsers and apps like AIM) and it retains the right gamma.

I am not arguing for my usage of GIF, simply general usage of it by people like the OP. For this reason it's important to note that nobody uses the PNG transparency hacks because it's often unviable because of inconvenience, lack of technical knowledge, lack of access to page code, and hideous ugly hacky code clutter. It's a poor excuse for the negative PNG not having real transparency support in IE~6.

My point about IE was (terrible) sarcasm, of course it can't be ignored and blocked unless you're a complete fucktard. All I'm saying is that GIF is still a valid and sane choice for certain types of images, as it is more compatible and still compresses pretty well. PNG is slowly eclipsing GIF in the few cases GIF remains superior, but for now it's still a fine choice to use either.

By the way, I'm a stupid fag and I don't understand how to do that indented quote thing you're doing. How?