Around a year ago, Google officially launched the Circle to Search feature on select Android devices, allowing users to quickly search for information about anything they see on their phone screen. This bypassed the need to have or switch to a different app or execute a query.
Weirdly, though, since Google is tightly integrating Android and ChromeOS, the feature didn’t make it to Chromebooks—until now.
For ChromeOS Dev Channel users, Google finally cracked, allowing Chromebook users to select and search the screen. It is similar to Circle to Search, but the mechanism is brought up by Google Lens, which is a replica of Google Lens in Chrome.
It’s a simple enough process—just open the Launcher and click the Google Lens icon from the Launcher Menu. Use the cursor to expand the area to search. Alternatively, you can use the Space button on the keyboard to select the area to search.
On the left side, Google will display a small dialogue box with the search results. You can ask follow up questions in the same menu. Also, Copy text button, located above the searched area, is at your disposal to extract text.
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As minor as this may seem, the inclusion is bound to make searching easier for Chromebook users. Currently, I am able to use this feature on ChromeOS Dev Channel version 139.0.7258.42. Subsequent updates may find it into the stable version.
