Wednesday, March 02, 2011

More reverse image search: ChromeEye v1.0

Yesterday I released a new version of my reverse image search extension "ChromeEye" for Google Chrome. While the first version was simply a bridge to the reverse image search engine TinEye, the new version 1.0 includes the option to use different search engines. At the moment that means images can be sent either to TinEye or to GazoPa. TinEye, which seems to be most popular reverse image search engine these days, looks mainly for exact matches. GazoPa uses a very different algorithm, based on visual features, with sometimes surprising results. Both are still improving their algorithms, obviously, so we´ll keep an eye on them.

That said, ChromeEye is now a plugin for reverse image search in general, and I will be including more search engines in the future. Note also that it is using the right click context menu for image searches. This was a much asked for option in the previous version, but technically not possible (due to Chrome restrictions) when I released it.

ChromeEye v1.0 is a free download available from the chrome extensions directory and from the chrome web store.