View Image for Chrome

There are many of you out there who may remember the old “View Image” button on Google image search. The decision to remove the said button might seem small, but, in fact, it had quite a big impact. The change, which took place in February 2018, was the result of Google being bombarded with complaints from photographers from all over the world and some online photography-based services about how easy their work can be “stolen.”

In short, Google acknowledged the problem and took an important step towards discouraging image piracy. With this decision, Google is basically protecting the photographers, and drives traffic to websites that host the said images. Be that as it may, the “View Image” functions was quite important since it allowed users to effortlessly access the source image, and it’s no wonder that it is still missed today.

As it happens, there is a simple way of bringing back the beloved feature, and that solution involves users installing a simple Chrome extension in their beloved browsers. Dubbed View Image, the extension brings back both the “View Image” and the “Search by Image” buttons in the Google images results page.

The extension in question can be installed with no more than a few mouse clicks form the Google Web Store and should work right off the bat, without requiring user intervention or browser restart.

Subsequent to its installation, users will be able to benefit from all the advantages provided by the “View Image” function, and start saving pictures or accessing the source picture a lot faster.

View Image may not be the most useful or the most stylish Chrome extension out there, but it works like it should, it doesn’t need a lot of resources to run, and it’s extremely unobtrusive, so there’s really no reason why users shouldn’t have it next to their other Chrome extensions.