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.
Great idea! However, something bothers me. From F-Droid:
I am not familiar with that service, so I went to the website and looked at FAQ:
Not sure what it is exactly but having my uploaded files stored in some obscure database until the heat death of the universe does not fill me with trust.
I have a Pixel phone and used the screen scanning tech (forgot how it's called, but it's the same feature, I believe) for OCR to copy the WiFi password from a photo of the sticker that's on the router and of course it immediately sent that password to Google and run the search, ugh. I don't want to send my WiFi password to some website I never even heard about, either.
Can you explain how it works?
That's a pretty important callout, especially when catbox specifically has a non-permanent sister site.
There is a popup explaining how it works when you install it. I asked something similar and the dev replied saying that they are looking into alternatives that don't upload the image anywhere: https://lemmy.ca/comment/22876710
Tldr from the pop-up:
I don't have the latest version since I got the fdroid release, but the GitHub release mentions a number of things that are now processed locally (ex. Text, QR, phone numbers)