The Download Blog

Cross-platform, cross-browser, and proud of it, browser plug-in PicLens is to Web surfing as an IMAX screen is to a 13-inch laptop monitor. In theory, it takes the images it finds on a Web site, expands them to super-extra-large size, and then lets you surf through them in a classy scaling interface that we think we last saw in Iron Man. Or maybe it was The Dark Knight.

Installing it places a button on the Toolbar. When you're on a PicLens-enabled Web site, click the PicLens button to activate the PicLens interface. Your screen will go black, and all the images on the site will zoom past you as if on a roller-coaster. They stop soon after, and from there you can surf the site using the subtly-placed search bar at the top of your monitor. Click on an image to enlarge it. If it's a still image, it simply enlarges. If it's a video, it enlarges and starts playing.

No doubt, PicLens puts the "graphic" back in "graphic user interface." However, it doesn't work on every Web site. It requires back-end code to be installed on the server hosting the site in question, and so the plug-in only supports a handful of the most popular graphics-intensive sites such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Picasa, Flickr, and a few others. A WordPress plug-in allows users of that blogging system to create PicLens functionality, and there's a Webmaster's guide on the PicLens site for users who host their own sites.

There are minor but noticeable stability issues in the Internet Explorer version, and Safari support is extant but not extensive. Even though PicLens is best used with Firefox, installing the add-on is worth it just for the sweeping, futuristic way that images stream by when you browse.

The fun browser add-on PicLens has incorporated YouTube and Amazon.com into the short but hopefully soon-to-grow list of supported Web sites. Compatible with Firefox on Windows and Mac, Internet Explorer, and Safari, PicLens recreates your surfing experience with a futuristic graphical display.

PicLens now supports searches on YouTube and Amazon.com.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

As Rafe talked about in February, PicLens highlights the image content of a site and allows you to whip back and forth using mouse gestures instead of conventional static browsing. If you're familiar with how it works with an image site like Flickr, the YouTube interface is identical. The PicLens plug-in will install a grid button on your Toolbar, which you click to activate the PicLens full-screen interface. Click a thumbnail to start playing a video, while the search box lives in the upper right of your screen. As video starts playing, standard YouTube controls appear at the bottom of the video. One potential drawback is that if the quality of the video is low, then the not-quite-full-screen playback will probably appear pixelated.

On Amazon, the experience is slightly different. The main Amazon.com page doesn't support the PicLens button, but if you click on the button anyway it will open up the PicLens UI. From there, change the Web site search to Amazon, type in your search term, and images of whatever item you searched for will zoom past. The Amazon interface responded slower than other, more heavily-image based Web sites like Picasa.

PicLens currently supports YouTube, Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, MySpace, Fotobucket, deviantART, Google Images, Yahoo Images, and about a half-dozen others. The slideshow mode makes PicLens more accessible for users who are worried about the vertiginous effects of the add-on. There's also a plug-in for WordPress users to add the feature to their site, and instructions for any webmaster to add PicLens support to their self-hosted pages.

PicLens, which we've covered before, is a browser plug-in that replaces the typical photo viewer you use on sites like Flickr. It's recently been updated, and if you haven't checked it out lately, now's the time. It's stunning.

The plug-in, which works in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Flock, and Safari (where it's a bit limited), lets you create a moving wall of images where you'd otherwise just see your Web app's more static display of pictures. Launching the viewer is just a matter of clicking a new "play" icon that appears on images when you're on a PicLens-supported site.

Sort of like CoverFlow, and in a very good way.

You can fling the wall backwards and forward to see images in the list, zoom in to full-screen versions of files with a double-click, or start a slideshow. It's a very Mac-like experience.

You also get a search bar in the viewer, which can scan for tagged images on Google, Yahoo, Flickr, PhotoBucket, SmugMug, and DeviantArt. The plug-in itself recognizes images from more sites, including Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Picassa Web Albums, and AOL Images.

I use it to keep my kid entertained (a slideshow of helicopters will quiet him right down). It really is a better experience than the standard search, view, and slideshow experience you usually get.

There's no embeddable version of the PicLens view yet. I'd like to see that.

CoolIris, which makes PicLens, is nicely funded by Kleiner-Perkins, and as yet has no system to make money from the service. Expect ads in the system to come once the user base has grown. Until then, you can enjoy this sweet product without commercial interruption.