This top Android phone feature is coming to Google Chrome
And there's already a Chrome hack that lets you sample it now
by Chris Hall · T3Quick summary
A feature similar to Circle to Search is coming to Chrome and Chrome OS.
It will allow you to image search anything in your browser and get useful results thanks to Google Lens' AI.
Android and Chrome have always gone hand in hand, linked together by your Google account and giving you an almost seamless experience across devices. But Chrome isn't just a browser, it's something bigger, spawning Chrome OS and delivering plenty of innovative features centred around Google Search.
When Samsung launched the Galaxy S24 family in early 2024, the headline feature was Galaxy AI. But it was another feature leaning on Google's AI that gained notoriety - Circle to Search. This clever feature lets you search anything on your phone's screen, using the AI-backed power of Google Lens to identify what's on the screen and deliver relevant search results.
Although Samsung was first to showcase this feature, it was soon added to the Pixel phones and enabled on other Android and even iOS devices. Now, this feature is going to be coming to Chromebooks, while it's also available in Chrome too.
According to 9to5Google, it's going to be drag to search, letting you highlight anything in your browser and search for it. When using a Chromebook, you'll get a Google Lens icon appear and you can tap that and drag a box out to highlight an item that will then be identified by Google Lens.
9to5Google says it's also coming to the regular Chrome browser, but there's already a feature that will do essentially the same thing so this is likely to be more of a refinement than a new feature in its own right.
How to search with Google Lens on Chrome
Ok, so it's not called Circle to Search, it's actually just a quick route to Google Lens in Chrome, so you can use the smart AI power of Google in any Chrome browser. You don't need a new version or a beta version, it works already.
- Right click on any image
- Select "Search image with Google"
- A side panel will open with the results
It's as simple as that, but there is a lot happening in the side panel that's worth exploring. Firstly, you have the option to search, select the text or translate, just the same way that Google Lens does on your phone. This changes the results you get under the image in the sidebar.
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Secondly, you can drag the selection around to focus on what you're interested in. If you don't want the entire image, but just a part of that image, you can drag the corners to focus on that. That is essentially same Drag to Search offering that's said to be coming to Chrome.
Finally, if you want to know more about the image, you can click "find image source". This will tell you where Google has found that image online. It's a great way to do a quick fact check on something, such as a news story you're reading. If you're seeing the same image used in a lot of places, it usually tells you who used it first, so that's likely to be the original and more reliable source.
So – Circle to Search – or a Drag to Search – feature looks to be coming to Chrome and Chrome OS, giving you that easy searching that's offered on Android, but if you're a Chrome user, you can already get access to that powerful Google Lens searching right now.
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