Is exiftran still needed today for resetting the orientation of JPEG images?

Question

Since more then ten years I use exiftran to rotate images after getting them from the camera.

Is this step still needed today?

Don't browsers and other image apps rotate the image correctly without running exiftran on the files.

Background on exiftran:

exiftran is a command line utility to transform digital image jpeg images. It can do lossless rotations like jpegtran, but unlike jpegtran it cares about the EXIF data: It can rotate images automatically by checking the exif orientation tag, it updates the exif information if needed (image dimension, orientation), it also rotates the exif thumbnail. It can process multiple images at once.

Answer 1

Since more then ten years I use exiftran to rotate images after getting them from the camera. Is this step still needed today?

Yes.

Don't browsers and other image apps rotate the image correctly without running exiftran on the files.

No.

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As stated by @junkyardsparkle:

I personally still experience occasional pain from discovering that the actual orientation of an image wasn't what it appeared to be, so I try to eliminate the discrepancy in my files as much as possible.

And noted by @AK:

There can be errors (e.g. the camera doesn't record the correct orientation on a particular shot.)

Also, often, images can become separated from their Exif data. Or images can be saved rotated, but the Exif not updated. Or multiple programs may treat the rotation flag differently resulting in different orientations being displayed.

The best way to minimize surprises and maximize interoperability is to use exiftran to rotate the images. It can be scripted to auto-rotate all files at import.