
Yandex Image Search is better than Google with “fuzzy” images - curiousmindz
It seems that some people easily assume that Google products are the best in their categories. Here is a counter-example:<p>Yandex Image Search is much better at finding matches for an image that has been modified (by Photoshop or by adding extra stuff on top). It has helped me find the source of many memes.<p>Give it a try:
https:&#x2F;&#x2F;yandex.com&#x2F;images&#x2F;<p>Here are some images that you can try:
https:&#x2F;&#x2F;img.youtube.com&#x2F;vi&#x2F;7g-EFLEkRpQ&#x2F;maxresdefault.jpg
https:&#x2F;&#x2F;img.youtube.com&#x2F;vi&#x2F;v4U2JrmVfdI&#x2F;maxresdefault.jpg
https:&#x2F;&#x2F;img.youtube.com&#x2F;vi&#x2F;VZngU4a23ik&#x2F;maxresdefault.jpg<p>Often, only Yandex enables you to find the original images that were use to create these thumbnails. While Google just gives you the links to the thumbnails.
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whywhywhywhy
Google Image Search used to be perfect, around 2-4 years ago or so they
swapped out the old school system which seemed to take some sort of
fingerprint of the image and then tell what it was from the context of pages
the image was found on.

The current system seems to use machine learning to try and tell what the
content of the image image is then just provide generic results for that term
along with a similar color palette.

Used to be able to find a movie screenshot on Tumblr, image search it and the
name of the movie would come up. These days it'll go recognize the image is a
woman on a street using ML, then show you results for "Woman" or "street" in
the color palette of the image and if you're lucky you'll get a link to
Pintrest too which also doesn't contain the context and just pushes you into a
Pintrest onboarding flow.

Feels like the Image Search team is more preoccupied with solving problems
which are interesting to them with zero interest if the tool actually better
or not for people who use it every day.

~~~
baybal2
I think "machine learning" maybe a good approach for image recognition, but it
is weak for image search, where visual hashes still reign supreme.

~~~
hikarudo
The best descriptors are most certainly obtained with machine learning
(embeddings).

~~~
wolco
The best are handmade.

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simonw
Yandex image search also uses facial recognition, which other image search
engines have deliberately avoided.

As a result it's getting a lot of interest as a tool for investigative
journalism. This tutorial by Bellingcat is really interesting:
[https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/how-
tos/2019/12/26/guid...](https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/how-
tos/2019/12/26/guide-to-using-reverse-image-search-for-investigations/)

~~~
baybal2
Google used OCR for routine indexing for at least a decade.

I found it how it was ridiculously good at finding car number plates, airplane
numbers, and even yachts!
[https://www.google.com/search?q=рпв+2396&tbm=isch](https://www.google.com/search?q=рпв+2396&tbm=isch)

In 2017 they did something to it, and it is now nowhere near as easy to find
people's cars now.

~~~
4cao
> I found it how it was ridiculously good at finding car number plates,
> airplane numbers, and even yachts!
> [https://www.google.com/search?q=рпв+2396&tbm=isch](https://www.google.com/search?q=рпв+2396&tbm=isch)

Interesting! It finds this ad listing where there is a photo of a boat with
exactly this registration number _in the background_ (the ad itself is for a
RIB, or "Rigid Inflatable Boat" in front of it):

[https://www.avito.ru/arhangelsk/vodnyy_transport/lodka_rib_s...](https://www.avito.ru/arhangelsk/vodnyy_transport/lodka_rib_stormline_ocean_drive_extra_500_1851558367)

As far as I can tell the number doesn't appear anywhere in text form, so it
must be OCR indeed.

~~~
baybal2
I wonder, have they intentionally "spoiled" the indexing of car number plates
to make it less creepy?

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cft
Importantly, it doesn't rank Pinterest highly, which is a major source of
Google search spam

~~~
scott31
At this point it is pretty clear Pinterest have connections in Google which
are pretty high up, allowing them to keep that behavior.

~~~
adrianmonk
Is there concrete evidence of that or is that just the only thing that you
think can explain it?

I can't dismiss that possibility, but I tend to think it's because, even
though _I_ don't see the appeal, with regular people, Pinterest is really
popular and liked. In other words, the ranking seems wrong to me, but I think
it might be because I am far from being a typical user.

A similar phenomenon happens with song lyrics on (regular) Google web search.
If I search for "sting englishman in new york lyrics", what _I_ want is the
official lyrics from Sting's official web site
([https://www.sting.com/discography/lyrics/128](https://www.sting.com/discography/lyrics/128)).
Instead, I get pages of popular sites like genius.com, azlyrics.com,
lyrics.com, metrolyrics.com, etc. I try to avoid these sites because their
lyrics are often inaccurate and wrong (which defeats the purpose of looking up
a line I'm not sure if I heard right), so the artist's official site or a fan
site is vastly preferable. (I also want to support the artist. Maybe while I'm
there I'll check for tour dates or merchandise.)

But I've mentioned this preference to some people before, and they surprised
me by saying they like and prefer the big, well-known lyrics sites. To me,
these are lowest common denominator junk bordering on spam, but to them it's
what they are looking for. Point being, apparently most users aren't as
particular about it as me and just want to go to familiar sites. Google may be
ranking popular sites higher because that's what people actually want.

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jld
Google image search seemingly has become more about identifying your image and
then searching for different images of the same thing. It’s really not a
useful tool for identifying a particular image any more.

Yandex is my go to now.

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cvhashim
Does Yandex have an api open to the public for image search? I’m working on a
side project of an image recognition app that can recognize an image of a
specific image a user uploads, search the web, and return the results. Exactly
as shazaam works but in my case for images. Unsure if Yandex will be useful in
this case. I looked into Google’s VisionAI image recognition platform but it
seems that platform can only recognize what the object is (such as a shoe or
cat) rather than giving me results of exact or similar images. If anyone here
could point me in the right direction Id appreciate it.

~~~
danielcampos93
I believe the Bing API can do this.

"Use smart identification of image content to recognize celebrities, find
products, or search for related content."

[https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cognitive-
service...](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cognitive-
services/bing-visual-search/)

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cblconfederate
it also finds the image you are actually looking for, instead of the
pinterest-of-a-free-but-not-free-stock-photo-spammer

it also shows the image full width, not in a frustrating slightly-bigger-than-
thumbnail preview on a side pane

it also actually searches face images, not just tomatoes

also a lot less a prude than google

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deyan
I was surprised when I discovered that Yandex's OCR is also better than
Google's version:

[https://translate.yandex.com/ocr](https://translate.yandex.com/ocr)

For example, comparing the results from pictures with Japanese or Chinese
text, Yandex gives meaningful results, while Google often struggles.

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guerrilla
Fascinating. I don't know if other people will get the same result but reverse
image searching for [1] on Yandex gave literal CRTs in literal swamps, not
just things in water or CRTs somewhere. Doing the same on Google gave neither
CRTs nor swamps.

Regular image search is much nicer too but I wonder if that's just because it
isn't polluted with products? Searching for galaxy on Google gave me all kinds
of products while on Yandex is just gave me literal galaxies. Maybe just less
spam because its less popular? Or maybe some of those Google results are
actually ads?

1\. [https://im0-tub-
com.yandex.net/i?id=a8f55cb11e37e5a6616b33bd...](https://im0-tub-
com.yandex.net/i?id=a8f55cb11e37e5a6616b33bd48d9cbda&n=13&exp=1)

~~~
curiousmindz
Very cool results indeed. Clearly some object detection involved.

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guidovranken
Yandex image search is amazingly good, certainly for faces. Bing is also
pretty good. Google is the worst out of these three.

If a picture of your face is hosted on the internet (for example on your blog)
you can do the following experiment. Take a selfie (eg. a picture of your face
that doesn't exist yet online) and upload it to Yandex. It will probably
identify you.

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bilbopotter
Google image search is now terrible. Literally will just give you other
examples of 'dogs'or 'man'

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wintorez
Yandex image search is frighteningly good, especially when it comes to facial
recognition. Nothing comes close to it.

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thatguy01
Another good example of this is this photoshoped image. Yandex give you both
results, the background and the girl in the foreground.

NSFW-ish (girl in bikini)
[https://imgur.com/a/k8Ovoap](https://imgur.com/a/k8Ovoap)

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throwaway9d0291
Some other handy tools:

\- For finding the source of artworks, especially the anime/manga variety:
saucenao.com

\- For figuring out which anime a given screenshot is from: saucenao.com,
trace.moe

\- For a right-click shortcut for searching various image search engines:
[https://saucenao.com/tools/](https://saucenao.com/tools/)

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entropea
I don't like that the "view full size image" is gone, or at least almost gone.
I remember Google Images being very good in the early 2000's, but now it's
really anti-user. It has become a chore to save images from Google, with a lot
being Pinterest spam that doesn't fulfill my search.

~~~
martinbooth
This was the result of a lawsuit.. getty images if I remember correctly

~~~
dublinben
Indeed. Getty is probably to blame for ruining Google Image Search.

[https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/02/internet-rages-
after...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/02/internet-rages-after-google-
removes-view-image-button-bowing-to-getty/)

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nickysielicki
Yandex free services are underrated in general. I use them as a free email
provider for all my programming related mailing lists and bugzilla accounts
and I have had zero issues whatsoever.

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Crash0v3rid3
I'm seeing decent results for both, then I tried Garbage: Yandex shows some
random band I've never seen before, google shows garbage bins and landfills.

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sawaruna
I won’t say it’s objectively better in all cases but Deepl provides better
translations from what I’ve seen than Google Translate.

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thrwway34
Are they still censoring anything that's considered offensive to Putin or
Kremlin?

~~~
qzx_pierri
Probably, but that's only a problem if you live in Russia.

