Why Use This Circle To Search App?

The Problem with Google’s CTS Version

  • Forced Cloud Syncing: Uploads your selection to servers even when you just want to copy text.

  • Get’s accidentally triggerd frequently, exposing sensitive data instantly to google

  • Ecosystem Lock-in: Restricted to Google Search—no support for Bing, Yandex, or AI models.

  • Locked to Google ecosystem—no choice of search engine

  • Missing Features: Useful features like “Share” and “Save” have been stripped out.

  • Hardware Exclusivity: Only available on expensive flagship devices (Pixel 8, Galaxy S24+).

What We Do Differently

  • Only what you circle gets processed—nothing else

  • True Offline OCR: Text recognition works 100% locally on your device—no internet needed.

  • QR detection offline, Smart Scan offline—no unnecessary servers

  • Universal Compatibility: Works with any search engine (Google, Bing, Yandex, TinEye,).

  • Restored Utility: We brought back the “Share” and “Save” features Google removed.

  • Works on any Android device, not just expensive flagships

  • Works on De-Googled Devices no google programs needed.

  • 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.

  • steel_for_humans@piefed.socialEnglish
    38·
    2 days ago

    Great idea! However, something bothers me. From F-Droid:

    This app relies on catbox.moe to upload images and Google, Bing, Yandex, TinyEye, Perplexcity and ChatGPT for search.

    I am not familiar with that service, so I went to the website and looked at FAQ:

    How long does Catbox keep files for?
    Forever. If you don’t want your file to stick around until the heat death of the universe, use Litterbox.

    Are you (F)(L)OSS?
    no.

    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?

    • Otter@lemmy.ca
      15·
      2 days ago

      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:

      • it uses litterbox by default for the auto delete, and catbox when that fails
      • it needed to add uploads since apps aren’t allowed to programmatically upload to search engines
      • it recommends against scanning anything sensitive since Google/Bing are keeping it too

      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)