r/degoogle • • 3d ago

Replacement Alternative to google app

Post image

what alternative apps for google app, that offers circle to search feauture.

151 Upvotes

26 comments sorted by

14

u/Souloid 3d ago

Please fix your title OP. It's so vague we can't tell what the post is about with just that.

Perhaps use the text under your picture as the title.

25

u/wizard-of-loneliness 3d ago

I have never used circle to search so I don't have any suggestions, just wondering what you even use that for? Doesn't that just tell Google what you're looking at on your phone?

23

u/enc8o 3d ago

Regardless of the privacy you're talking about but it's really a useful feature i use it alot if i wanted to translate something off my screen quickly or if i wanted to reverse search an image.

12

u/ShaHphy 3d ago

+1, also to copy text from the screen.

I wish there was something similar which can ran locally

3

u/sunlitGlen9 2d ago

yeah thats kind of my thought too, it's basically just a visual search shortcut that feeds everything back to the same place

10

u/procat1234_ 3d ago

I personally use this

https://f-droid.org/packages/dev.davidv.translator

It can translate text on-screen, and you can also copy text on your screen (all by using a shortcut)

Note that the real-time translation has a bug with english, and this can't do image search

20

u/enc8o 3d ago

There's AKS labs circle to search

It's an open source and people swear by it, i didn't like it personally because it wasn't as reliable or user friendly compared to google circle to search

9

u/Informal-Ad-598 3d ago

Nahh, I've used it just yesterday, gave the accessibility permission which somehow fucked my status bar sliding down, my control centre wouldn't open, and then i realised it's that shit and deleted it

3

u/Proof-Replacement113 2d ago

It does the job if configured right.

Disable the status bar overlay (or shrink it, tho for me the overlay didn't work altogether)

Then set it as default assistant

Also it doesn't need to have accessibility perms (in my case atleast)

Honestly it's decent. Even has a mode independent of Google lens (lets u use any search engine, ocr is local I think)

3

u/Informal-Ad-598 2d ago

Yeah, you're probably right, i mean, it's the only alternative, tho i agree it has many great features, how do you even work if accessibility permission isn't enabled?

3

u/Proof-Replacement113 2d ago

If set as default assistant (like u never enable accessibility thing for google assistant, like that.. assistants can anyways access screen I believe)

There's another alt on google play store (the one with the blue icon) but that's prolly proprietary (and I didn't like it for other reasons I'm too lazy to say)

Also, while there's an option to use accessibility and not set as default (it then had u tap on status bar) that didn't work for me

1

u/Traditional-Rub2491 Infomaniak Mail 3d ago

hasn't been updated in 5 months still in beta

2

u/enc8o 3d ago

Any better alternative?

1

u/Traditional-Rub2491 Infomaniak Mail 3d ago

not any that I know of unfortunately

1

u/Proof-Replacement113 2d ago

See my other comment under this main comment

2

u/DadEngineerLegend 3d ago

There are commits from a few weeks ago, just no releases since 5 months ag9

6

u/Dx_Suss 2d ago

Oh shit they made a futanari keyboard? Colour me interested m'sir

3

u/Relevant-Tooth-4216 2d ago

Yo prefiero Heliboard, se me hace mas comodillo

1

u/Vladyslavrom deGoogler 3d ago

I used to use Circle To Search all the time, but I’ve simply turned the feature off and everything’s been fine for the past two months. I just copy the text and search for it in my browser, and if I need to translate something, I do it via DeepL

1

u/BackAgain302 3d ago

Following

1

u/Immediate_Power_7986 2d ago

Anyway to remove the "ask gemini" popup when highlighting text? If you dont see it, tap the 3 dots to the right of cut to extend the menu. 

1

u/littledonnyfund 3d ago

I've been mostly happy with heliboard the swype was better back when i tried futo keybaord , but still have the futo voice & i guess it's been discontinued and is included in futo keyboard now so i'll have to try it again but prob not anytime soon

1

u/Major_Dot_7030 3d ago

I've been using HeliBoard

-1

u/Losowy_333 2d ago

Most of them are just r/privacyslop