ART is a proprietary image file format mostly used by the America Online® (AOL) client software. The ART format (file extension ".art") holds a single still image that has been highly compressed. Originally, the compression was developed by the Johnson-Grace company which was then acquired by the AOL service. When an image is converted to the ART format, the image is analyzed and the software decides what compression technique would be best [1].
The AOL service can automatically convert images downloaded from the Internet to the ART format. This conversion reduces the downloading time for the image file. If you notice image display problems with the AOL web browser, see this America Online webmaster FAQ entry.
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