Browser Tips
Secret settings and the best extensions
CHROME
Disable the ‘Search with Google Lens’ feature
As we explained in Issue 691 (page 42), Google has now integrated its AI-powered tool Google Lens with Chrome. This lets you search for information about content on a web page – including text, images and videos – without typing anything. Instead you use Google Lens to capture a screenshot of selected content, and it displays ‘visual matches’ from across the web in the browser’s sidebar.
It’s potentially useful but Google’s implementation of the feature seems heavy-handed. A ‘Search with Google Lens’ option now appears in Chrome’s address bar, its main (three-dot) menu, the right-click menu and even in the ‘Find on page’ box ( 1 in our screenshot below) that opens when you press the Ctrl+F keyboard shortcut.
You’ll probably find all this annoying if you don’t disable the feature or at least reduce its presence in the browser. Type chrome://flags in the address bar and press Enter to load the Experiments page. Find the entry Lens overlay 2 , select Disabled in its dropdown menu 3 and click Relaunch. When Chrome reopens, all mention of Google Lens will have gone.