What is a .mp3 file?

MP3 is the most widely recognised audio format in the world — a lossy compressed format that dramatically reduces file size by discarding sounds the human ear is least likely to perceive. The format that broke the music industry. In the late 1990s, a German research institute figured out how to shrink a CD track from 50 megabytes to 5 without most people hearing the difference. Then Napster happened, and suddenly every song ever recorded could fit on a hard drive. The music business spent the next fifteen years suing teenagers and pretending the internet was a fad. At 320 kbps, most listeners can't distinguish MP3 from the original. The patents expired in 2017, making the format completely free. Every device on earth plays MP3, and that's unlikely to change in your lifetime.