Compuserve's second version of GIF, known as GIF 89a [14], allows timed delays to be inserted between images in a multi-image GIF file, making it possible to use GIF for animations. The timing resolution is 1/100 second. One may also specify a count of times to rerun the animation, or make it run infinitely.
Animated GIFs have gained popularity recently, being used for spicing up Web pages, especially in commercial advertising. Several freely available tools for making animated GIFs from a sequence of single images has become available.
Compared to client pull, that was formerly used for the same purposes, animated GIFs put less load on the network, since images are transferred only once. Since the entire file is sent to the client, it may be cached locally, resulting in faster play, and faster reload of the page including the animation.