
Why Use This Circle To Search App?
The Problem with Google's CTS Version
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Forced Cloud Syncing: Uploads your selection to servers even when you just want to copy text.
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Get's accidentally triggerd frequently, exposing sensitive data instantly to google
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Ecosystem Lock-in: Restricted to Google Search—no support for Bing, Yandex, or AI models.
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Locked to Google ecosystem—no choice of search engine
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Missing Features: Useful features like "Share" and "Save" have been stripped out.
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Hardware Exclusivity: Only available on expensive flagship devices (Pixel 8, Galaxy S24+).
What We Do Differently
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Only what you circle gets processed—nothing else
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True Offline OCR: Text recognition works 100% locally on your device—no internet needed.
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QR detection offline, Smart Scan offline—no unnecessary servers
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Universal Compatibility: Works with any search engine (Google, Bing, Yandex, TinEye,).
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Restored Utility: We brought back the "Share" and "Save" features Google removed.
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Works on any Android device, not just expensive flagships
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Works on De-Googled Devices no google programs needed.
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And has many other useful features
100% Independent: Works on any Android phone (Android 10+), without requiring Google Play Services or OEM-specific software.
Privacy-First: No background tracking or logs—just pure on-device selection.
➥ Download:
- github
It still needs a lot of improvements and isn't polished yet, as I am a solo developer working on it. You can download it from GitHub for now, as the new update is yet to be released on F-Droid.

I'm in the same boat. I use gesture navigation so I have the pill at the bottom.
Holding that still opens Google's interface.
@Aditya_151@lemmy.world is there anyway to hook into that?
I guess for now the workaround is to enable accessibility service and move the overlay to the bottom.
edit1: also make sure to disable OG circle to search.
edit2: seems promising but doesn't do OCR text copy like OG circle to search (a future I use a lot). Will be keeping an eye on this.
By default, it uses a fast English model to keep the app size small, which can miss some text. You can download and import a more accurate OCR language model for the best accuracy from dev's telegram group.