Chrome could revolutionize PC search with major Google Lens upgrade that lets you circle to search images
Google Chrome on desktop is getting the equivalent of the popular Circle to Search feature on mobile devices. The feature, powered by Google Lens, should be available in the browser soon.
If 9 to 5 Google reports that on a Chromebook, the feature is activated by clicking a Google Lens icon in the URL bar of the Chrome browser, but that it’s a bit more hidden on Windows 11 or macOS. Outside of ChromeOS, you’ll need to go to the Chrome menu and select “Search with Google Lens.”
Whichever route you choose, once you activate the feature, you can highlight something on a web page that you want to search for (using a resizable box), whether that’s an element of an image or video.
The image search results are then quickly displayed in a sidebar on the same tab as the web page.
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In some ways, this is a relatively small change – the addition of just a small icon or menu option in Windows/Mac – but it’s one that could have a big impact on the way you search with Google Chrome.
No matter what you’re watching in your desktop browser, if you’re curious about something you see in, say, the background of a video—“what’s that car?” for example—you can simply pause the clip, fire up Google Lens search, quickly highlight the car, and boom, you’re (hopefully) fully informed about the vehicle. (And you can use the search box in the sidebar to dig into even more detail about it, if you want.)
This is a very clever change in our books, but it’s not here yet. As 9 to 5 Google notes, after being hidden in development for a while, the feature is now live in the recent Chrome 128 beta (and ChromeOS beta, too). With the functionality also detailed on Chrome’s “what’s new” page, it’s expected that this Google Lens search option will debut soon.
