GIF Files
Explained in Plain English

GIF files contain pictures. They are widely used on the internet because they do a better job than other formats like JPG for things like logos, buttons, and other web page graphics.

GIF files can also be animated - the file will contain a series of pictures which your web browser will display in sequence.

If you are downloading files from newsgroups, you may want to tell your news-reader program to ignore GIF files since they will usually be spam. Serious photographers use JPG files for their photos.