# Google Lens

21 Hacker News commenters recommended Google Lens and 4 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 10 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** People use it to translate and copy text from photos and identify plants and objects. Critics say results are sometimes wrong, such as misidentified artwork details.

## Why people recommend it

- Extracts and translates text from images (4 comments): "I have been using google lens heavily to scan posters/flyers/information displays in other languages and get it translated to english in like 2-3 seconds." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47162310)) "I find the google lens thing in Chrome very handy - does ocr, finds stuff in images etc." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48124031)) "I use it several times a day just to change text in image form to text form" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46443324))
- Identifies plants, objects and things (2 comments): "I can take a photo of something and get back what it is and some information about it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49386643)) "Google Lens will tell you what a plant is" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48951218))
- Handy and used frequently (3 comments): "the Google Lens tool is very handy and gets used often." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48023604)) "Google Lens has surprisingly high usage" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46439253)) "google lens in chrome is very handy" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45894907))
- Good accuracy in many cases (3 comments): "If I show them to Google Lens the accuracy is good." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47740174)) "it read the whole thing with pretty good accuracy" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49954854)) "Google Lens will get it right" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46192301))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Google Search](https://hackerapproved.com/p/google-search.md): 315 recommend
- [Yandex Search](https://hackerapproved.com/p/yandex.md): 79 recommend
- [Marginalia Search](https://hackerapproved.com/p/marginalia-search.md): 50 recommend
- [Bing](https://hackerapproved.com/p/bing.md): 33 recommend
- [Ecosia](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ecosia.md): 24 recommend

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://www.google.com?olud)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Google Lens", https://hackerapproved.com/p/google-lens/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).