Compatibility of Portable Network Graphics (.png)

I've noticed more and more people saving their images in the .png format. What are the benefits and drawbacks of using this format, and is it compatible with everything? I found this <a href="http://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutors/image_formats.html" target="_blank">great article</a> on jpegs, .gifs, and bitmaps, but there was no mention of PNG.

The .png website:
http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/

I've used .png files on some pages with good success.

(sadly - someone didn't do a very good job with the .png bullets they use on their home page! *lol)

Thanks much! That site should be helpful, there's a lot of information there (actually an overwhelming amount).

I think that I'm going to go ahead and use .png on my site. I experimented with one particular image and the one saved as .png was, without a doubt, the clearest.

from what i understand, it's a higher compression, higher clarity version
of what a jpg is. and more graphic apps are using it because of this, so
it can be transferred between different apps and not lose any quality.

I'm not an expert on png's, but I know macromedia's products really like
the format. especially between fireworks and flash.

I have to agree with UNFLUX.

I'm a Studio MX fan right now. Love the integration between them. I don't get the clarity I'm looking for with any other progs. Fireworks does very well for me.

Photoshop for me..
fireworks for me, seems basic and a waste of time. hey i might be wrong, but an opinions an opinion.

The image was created in Photoshop. The top two images below are going to be .png versions of my .jpg signature at the bottom of the page. The one on top was "saved for web" as a .png - 24 file. The one immediately below it was "saved for web" as a .png - 8 file. Personally I can see the clarity difference between the three (albeit slight). All were "saved for web" from the original .psd file. The only difference is the .png - 24 is 34kb, and the .png - 8 is 14kb vs. the 9kb for the .jpg

If file size is not an issue, then .png is definately clearer. And I can see the difference even with bifocals! *lol If you can't then skip the .png stuff.

Here's the comparison:
- png-24
- png-8

i CAN TEll the diff. between the very bottom and the 2 top ones, the very bottom is poor quality and the 2 tops ones are awesome quality, the thing is i can NOT tell the diff. between the top 2.

I can only see a very slight difference between the png formats. To me it's hardly worth more than doubling the file size. I suppose in the not-so-distant future, I'll probably be saving and using many images in the png-8 format. The quality difference is worth the slightly larger file size, in my opinion.