A couple of days ago, Google and Getty Images agreed on making Getty Images’s stock images appear on Google Images. This leads to Google removing the “View Image” Button on its Images Search so as to prevent copyright infringement of Getty Images, as the Button would make it easy for searchers to download the images without visiting the website.
However, this decision has restricted image view; now, images searchers on Google Images would have to visit the hosts’ website before they can view images. A long process.
If you aren’t happy with this update, you aren’t alone; I am not happy about it, too – although I am in total support of copyright and intellectual property.
Nevertheless, we need our “View Image” Button back, and this is what I want to show you how to do in this post.
How to Restore the “View Image” Button in Google Image
For every techy problem, there is always a techy solution – thanks to the good guys always developing apps, add-ons, and extensions. Almost immediately after Google implemented the changes and removed the “View Image” Button, Joshua Butt (a nice guy) developed and released an extension for Chrome that restores the Button.
The name of the extension is called “View Image” too, and you can download it here. When you land on the extension’s page, click on ADD TO CHROME to install it.
After successfully adding the extension, the “View Image” Button would be restored, as it is shown in the image below.
Moreover, the Button works perfectly as the old “View Image” Button removed by Google itself.
Firefox and Opera Can’t Restore “View Image” Button Now
The sad thing about this breakthrough from Joshua is that his extension only works for Google Chrome. Nobody has taken his time to find a fix for Firefox and Opera. Therefore, if you use images from Google Images a lot and your preferred browser isn’t Chrome, you might need to port to enjoy the “View Image” Button.
I will be updating this post when I find a way to restore the Button on the two browsers.
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