.AVI - Audio/Video Interleaved
Standard video format supported on the windows platform. They do not stream, however, so you have to download the entire file before you can watch any of it.
.BIN - Mac BINary archive
A way of compressing many files into one together, for the Mac only.
.CSS - Cascading StyleSheet
CSS files are a tool in the repertoire of webmasters that take care of how their websites look. CSS files can be created or edited in any text-editor, like Notepad.
.DOC - Microsoft Word DOCument
Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world. You probably won’t come across loads of doc files, but if you do it can be annoying if you haven’t got a program that can open them.
.EXE - EXEcutable file
If you download a program that you need to install, it will likely come as an exe file. Just double click it to install on your PC. Be careful of viruses!
.GIF - Graphics Interchange Format
The most common image format on the Internet. Good for simple images.
.HTML/ .HTM - HyperText Markup Language file
Most pages you create for a website will be HTML files - What is HTML? You’re reading one right now. Sorted.
.JPG/ .JPEG - Joint Photographic Experts Group file
Another very common image file format, mainly used for photos. Again, for more check out the page.
.MIDI/ .MID - Musical Instrument Digital Interface
Midis are sequenced music files made on keyboards. They’re usually really small and often sound great, although it largely depends on your soundcard. Midi collections are one of the few places in the world where you can find classic game and movie music, and for that I salute them.
.MP3 - MPEG Layer 3 sound file
Singlehandedly caused a revolution. MP3 is a sound file format which is highly compressed, which allows download-happy filesizes and excellent quality. Has caused much grief for the music industry as songs are now small enough to be traded online.
.MPEG/ .MPG - Motion Picture Experts Group file
One of the standards for streaming movies.
.MOV/ .QT - QuickTime MOVie
The QuickTime format was designed by Apple and originated on the Mac, but has made the transition to the PC and is hugely popular.
.PDF - Portable Document Format
Adobe Acrobat files were invented so that documents could be transferred between computers and indeed platforms, and still look the exact same, something which can’t be said about HTML files...
.PNG - Portable Network Graphics
PNGs are a file format designed to be used in place of GIFs. They are usually slightly smaller, and sport advanced features like alpha-channel transparency and 24-bit colour support.
.RAM - Real Audio Movie
Real Networks created formats for streaming audio and video, and gave away free players for the formats, before allowing themselves to become so smothered in advertising that everyone with sense decided to stop using their programs.
.RAR - RAR archive
This is a compressed file format similar to the popular .zip format. It sports advanced functions like special multimedia compression and has many benefits over zip files.
.TIFF - Tagged Image File Format
For really high quality images, TIFFs are used, but cannot be viewed through a browser.
.TXT - TeXT file
The most basic of files, it’s just some text. You no doubt already have either NotePad, SimpleText, or your browser, which you umm... definitely have.
.WAV - WAVe sound file
A basic, either un- or not very- compressed sound file, usually used for short sound samples. Your computer will be able to play these anyway (when it turns on and sings it’s playing a .wav).
.ZIP - ZIPped file
Zipped files are really groups of other types of files kept together and compressed a bit. Many downloads will consist of zip collections, so be sure to have something to open them with.
Standard video format supported on the windows platform. They do not stream, however, so you have to download the entire file before you can watch any of it.
.BIN - Mac BINary archive
A way of compressing many files into one together, for the Mac only.
.CSS - Cascading StyleSheet
CSS files are a tool in the repertoire of webmasters that take care of how their websites look. CSS files can be created or edited in any text-editor, like Notepad.
.DOC - Microsoft Word DOCument
Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world. You probably won’t come across loads of doc files, but if you do it can be annoying if you haven’t got a program that can open them.
.EXE - EXEcutable file
If you download a program that you need to install, it will likely come as an exe file. Just double click it to install on your PC. Be careful of viruses!
.GIF - Graphics Interchange Format
The most common image format on the Internet. Good for simple images.
.HTML/ .HTM - HyperText Markup Language file
Most pages you create for a website will be HTML files - What is HTML? You’re reading one right now. Sorted.
.JPG/ .JPEG - Joint Photographic Experts Group file
Another very common image file format, mainly used for photos. Again, for more check out the page.
.MIDI/ .MID - Musical Instrument Digital Interface
Midis are sequenced music files made on keyboards. They’re usually really small and often sound great, although it largely depends on your soundcard. Midi collections are one of the few places in the world where you can find classic game and movie music, and for that I salute them.
.MP3 - MPEG Layer 3 sound file
Singlehandedly caused a revolution. MP3 is a sound file format which is highly compressed, which allows download-happy filesizes and excellent quality. Has caused much grief for the music industry as songs are now small enough to be traded online.
.MPEG/ .MPG - Motion Picture Experts Group file
One of the standards for streaming movies.
.MOV/ .QT - QuickTime MOVie
The QuickTime format was designed by Apple and originated on the Mac, but has made the transition to the PC and is hugely popular.
.PDF - Portable Document Format
Adobe Acrobat files were invented so that documents could be transferred between computers and indeed platforms, and still look the exact same, something which can’t be said about HTML files...
.PNG - Portable Network Graphics
PNGs are a file format designed to be used in place of GIFs. They are usually slightly smaller, and sport advanced features like alpha-channel transparency and 24-bit colour support.
.RAM - Real Audio Movie
Real Networks created formats for streaming audio and video, and gave away free players for the formats, before allowing themselves to become so smothered in advertising that everyone with sense decided to stop using their programs.
.RAR - RAR archive
This is a compressed file format similar to the popular .zip format. It sports advanced functions like special multimedia compression and has many benefits over zip files.
.TIFF - Tagged Image File Format
For really high quality images, TIFFs are used, but cannot be viewed through a browser.
.TXT - TeXT file
The most basic of files, it’s just some text. You no doubt already have either NotePad, SimpleText, or your browser, which you umm... definitely have.
.WAV - WAVe sound file
A basic, either un- or not very- compressed sound file, usually used for short sound samples. Your computer will be able to play these anyway (when it turns on and sings it’s playing a .wav).
.ZIP - ZIPped file
Zipped files are really groups of other types of files kept together and compressed a bit. Many downloads will consist of zip collections, so be sure to have something to open them with.
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