YSK you can use Imagus or any hover to zoom addon to quickly view images and gifs on your Lemmy front page

Why YSK: It makes viewing images fast and easy, with no clicks.

I got used to this on the site that shall not be named, sometimes I don't want to open the whole image or post. With the addon if I hover over the image button that would expand the image, it will show the image full size for as long as I hover over it, no clicking needed, this works with gifs as well.