Hi specialKid,
Thanks for the clarification. I am actually not aware of any changes that have been made related to the HTML Uploader since we introduced the initial version of the Auctiva Uploader many years ago, so I am quite surprised to hear you have noticed this difference in compression in recent months.
I was under the impression that you were using the Auctiva Uploader because, in addition to being the default uploader that is used on the lister page, we recently installed a new version which compresses images a bit differently.
To answer your question - each uploader we have available is effectively a different program and they do not behave exactly the same in this regard. The previous version of the Auctiva Uploader, which I provided the link to above, appears to do the least compression during the upload process.
-Mike