{"slug": "google-lens", "name": "Google Lens", "category": "search", "category_name": "Search", "description": "", "recommenders": 4, "commenters": 7, "warners": 1, "score": 3.063, "rising": -0.31, "first": "2025-11-14", "latest": "2026-08-08", "why": "I have been using google lens heavily to scan posters/flyers", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 6, "neutral": 2, "compare": 1, "warn": 1}, "spark": [1, 0, 0, 2, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I have been using google lens heavily to scan posters/flyers", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://lens.google", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Google Lens"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 787626098, "item_id": 49226631, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49226631", "by": "tim333", "date": "2026-08-08", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the built in Google Lens tool is cool", "excerpt": "I use Chrome. uBlock Origin Lite works fine, basically as well as the old uBlock as far as I can tell. As to why, I kind of like it - the built in Google Lens tool is cool and I don't think is in the other browsers?", "context": "", "use_case": "visual search in browser", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft Edge is about to lock out older ad blockers, just like Chrome did"}, {"id": 768377666, "item_id": 48023604, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48023604", "by": "tim333", "date": "2026-05-05", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the Google Lens tool is very handy and gets used often.", "excerpt": "Yeah that's mostly why I use it. When I try Firefox I get out of memory messages for some reason. Also the Google Lens tool is very handy and gets used often.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent"}, {"id": 764024785, "item_id": 47751549, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47751549", "by": "jcalx", "date": "2026-04-13", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Google Lens and ChatGPT could localize the majority of their test photos pretty specifically", "excerpt": "Quite good, per Bellingcat [0] \u2014 Google Lens and ChatGPT could localize the majority of their test photos pretty specifically. [0] https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/2025/08/14/llms-vs-geolocation-gpt-5-performs-worse-than-other-ai-models/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Android now stops you sharing your location in photos"}, {"id": 754596962, "item_id": 47162310, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47162310", "by": "freakynit", "date": "2026-02-25", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have been using google lens heavily to scan posters/flyers", "excerpt": "I have been using google lens heavily to scan posters/flyers/information displays in other languages and get it translated to english in like 2-3 seconds. So freakin helpful.", "context": "", "use_case": "translating posters", "switched_from": "", "story": "How Will OpenAI Compete?"}, {"id": 750216450, "item_id": 46888528, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46888528", "by": "PaulHoule", "date": "2026-02-04", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "just take a picture of the screen on your phone with Google Lens", "excerpt": "I think the plain ordinary chatbot behind the Copilot on the desktop is fine, it seems like a skin around ChatGPT-5 in the \"Smart\" mode and in the \"Search\" mode it compares to Google's AI mode. When it comes to anything multimodal it is an absolute disaster. Show it a photo of a plant for a plant id? Forget about it, just take a picture of the screen on your phone with Google Lens. If you ask it to draw something or ", "context": "", "use_case": "plant identification", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft's Pivotal AI Product Is Running into Big Problems"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 769951889, "item_id": 48121993, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48121993", "by": "jeroenhd", "date": "2026-05-13", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "the artefacts confuse Lens and other image parsing systems", "excerpt": "Google's Gemini features differ per region to a massive extent. There's a good chance privacy laws prevent Google from providing me with the same Gemini you use. Object detection is mediocre at best. Circling things and using their AI editing features works, but the artefacts confuse Lens and other image parsing systems. Extracting objects from images usually mostly works, but it's not on par with what Apple had long", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Googlebook: Designed for Gemini Intelligence \u2013 Coming Fall 2026 \u2013 Googlebook"}]}], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["visual search in browser", "translating posters", "plant identification", "image-to-text (ocr)"], "compared": [{"slug": "google-chrome", "name": "Google Chrome", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "firefox", "name": "Firefox", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "google-translate", "name": "Google Translate", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "chatgpt", "name": "ChatGPT", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49220392", "title": "Microsoft Edge is about to lock out older ad blockers, just like Chrome did", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48111545", "title": "Googlebook: Designed for Gemini Intelligence \u2013 Coming Fall 2026 \u2013 Googlebook", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48019219", "title": "Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47750669", "title": "Android now stops you sharing your location in photos", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47741527", "title": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (April 2026)", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47251480", "title": "Making Firefox's right-click not suck with about:config", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 1}, "2025-12": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-03": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-04": {"compare": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-05": {"recommend": 1, "warn": 1}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 787626098, "item_id": 49226631, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49226631", "by": "tim333", "date": "2026-08-08", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the built in Google Lens tool is cool", "excerpt": "I use Chrome. uBlock Origin Lite works fine, basically as well as the old uBlock as far as I can tell. As to why, I kind of like it - the built in Google Lens tool is cool and I don't think is in the other browsers?", "context": "", "use_case": "visual search in browser", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft Edge is about to lock out older ad blockers, just like Chrome did"}, {"id": 769951889, "item_id": 48121993, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48121993", "by": "jeroenhd", "date": "2026-05-13", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "the artefacts confuse Lens and other image parsing systems", "excerpt": "Google's Gemini features differ per region to a massive extent. There's a good chance privacy laws prevent Google from providing me with the same Gemini you use. Object detection is mediocre at best. Circling things and using their AI editing features works, but the artefacts confuse Lens and other image parsing systems. Extracting objects from images usually mostly works, but it's not on par with what Apple had long", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Googlebook: Designed for Gemini Intelligence \u2013 Coming Fall 2026 \u2013 Googlebook"}, {"id": 768377666, "item_id": 48023604, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48023604", "by": "tim333", "date": "2026-05-05", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the Google Lens tool is very handy and gets used often.", "excerpt": "Yeah that's mostly why I use it. When I try Firefox I get out of memory messages for some reason. Also the Google Lens tool is very handy and gets used often.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent"}, {"id": 764024785, "item_id": 47751549, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47751549", "by": "jcalx", "date": "2026-04-13", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Google Lens and ChatGPT could localize the majority of their test photos pretty specifically", "excerpt": "Quite good, per Bellingcat [0] \u2014 Google Lens and ChatGPT could localize the majority of their test photos pretty specifically. [0] https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/2025/08/14/llms-vs-geolocation-gpt-5-performs-worse-than-other-ai-models/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Android now stops you sharing your location in photos"}, {"id": 763924498, "item_id": 47745281, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47745281", "by": "deivid", "date": "2026-04-12", "version": null, "stance": "compare", "quote": "crude implementation of Google translate+Google lens", "excerpt": "Working (again) on an offline translator for Android: https://github.com/davidventura/offline-translator This week I added TTS support, which needed multiple inference pipelines, it was not easy to find models for 50 languages! At this point, it mostly works as a crude implementation of Google translate+Google lens, but 100% offline and 100% Google-free", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (April 2026)"}, {"id": 756049808, "item_id": 47253113, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47253113", "by": "autoexec", "date": "2026-03-04", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Google lens is exactly the kind of thing add-ons are for.", "excerpt": "That's why https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-lens-search/ exists. Google lens is exactly the kind of thing add-ons are for. Some people might like it, they should be able to install it, but it doesn't belong in the browser by default. This is the same mistake they made with Pocket and I'm guessing it was done for the same reason (money) since they went with a Google product and not Bing Visual Sea", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Making Firefox's right-click not suck with about:config"}, {"id": 754596962, "item_id": 47162310, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47162310", "by": "freakynit", "date": "2026-02-25", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have been using google lens heavily to scan posters/flyers", "excerpt": "I have been using google lens heavily to scan posters/flyers/information displays in other languages and get it translated to english in like 2-3 seconds. So freakin helpful.", "context": "", "use_case": "translating posters", "switched_from": "", "story": "How Will OpenAI Compete?"}, {"id": 750216450, "item_id": 46888528, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46888528", "by": "PaulHoule", "date": "2026-02-04", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "just take a picture of the screen on your phone with Google Lens", "excerpt": "I think the plain ordinary chatbot behind the Copilot on the desktop is fine, it seems like a skin around ChatGPT-5 in the \"Smart\" mode and in the \"Search\" mode it compares to Google's AI mode. When it comes to anything multimodal it is an absolute disaster. Show it a photo of a plant for a plant id? Forget about it, just take a picture of the screen on your phone with Google Lens. If you ask it to draw something or ", "context": "", "use_case": "plant identification", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft's Pivotal AI Product Is Running into Big Problems"}, {"id": 743093184, "item_id": 46443324, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46443324", "by": "tim333", "date": "2025-12-31", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use it several times a day", "excerpt": ">Google Lens has surprisingly high usage I use it several times a day just to change text in image form to text form so you can search it and the like. It's built into chrome but they move the hidden icon about regularly to confuse you. This month you click the url and it appears underneath, helpfully labeled \"Ask Google about this page\" so as to give you little idea it's Google Lens.", "context": "", "use_case": "image-to-text (OCR)", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenAI's cash burn will be one of the big bubble questions of 2026"}, {"id": 734868978, "item_id": 45929311, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45929311", "by": "tim333", "date": "2025-11-14", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "better translate, google lens", "excerpt": "I tend to use Chrome over Firefox although I have both. Plus points - better translate, google lens, slick and consistent. Minus points - Firefox containers are good. Re privacy it comes across to me as a bit tin foil hat worrying about the evil doers tracking my thoughts. I mean sure I don't want criminals to know my home address and bank account details but re Google knowing say I use mac and advertising some Apple", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla"}]}