If you are a blogger or often download images from the ‘Google Search’ you must’ve noticed that you no longer can see ‘view image’ button. Well it’s not the fault of your internet connection or your browser!
Google has actually removed the ‘View Image’ button to prevent stealing of images. The move is small, but the impact it will be causing is huge. The button was extremely useful to students or researchers when they’re searching for an image. Although, it was also used by some businesses to simply go to the image and download it and use commercially. Which, by the way, is prohibited to use.
Today we’re launching some changes on Google Images to help connect users and useful websites. This will include removing the View Image button. The Visit button remains, so users can see images in the context of the webpages they’re on. pic.twitter.com/n76KUj4ioD
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) February 15, 2018
Although, some sources allows the images to be used commercially, after giving the proper credits, but this practice was not followed by all! The move however, is focused to help the copyright holder monetize from these pictures. Since now, if a user means to download an image, he would have to go to the concerned site on which the image is published. In this way it will help the owner of that site(or image) to monetize from ads that may be running on that page.
Google has been previously targeted by many photographers and publishers who felt that image search allowed people to steal their work and the removal of ‘view image’ button is made in that response.
Can you still download them?
Well, there’s a work-around that may help you to download that image. If you right-click on the image, you can select “open image in new tab” or “view image” from your browser to open the full-resolution picture (kindly note, this is you browser’s function). Here’s how:
Another change that Google has made is that beside removing the “view image” button, it has also removed the “search by image” that appeared when you used to open a photo. However, you’ll still be able to do a reverse image search by dropping the image on the search bar. This button was used to search the same image but without watermark.
This move by Google has been implemented by keeping in mind the rights of photographers and publishers, who were otherwise very upset as their work never gets proper credits. This move will make sure that the users are properly attributing photos!