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AI images are dominating search results.

Flip the switch…to view what's real.
CHROME EXTENSION · INDEPENDENT PROJECT

Flip one switch.
See what's real.

Real View hides AI-generated images across your browsing with a single toggle — so when you're hunting for real reference photos, you're not wading through a feed of synthetic ones.

No account · 10-second install · built solo — buy me a coffee ☕ if it's useful
AI IMAGES
OFF
pinterest.com/search?q=cats
Real photo of a catREAL
AI-generated image of a catAI
Real photo of a catREAL
Real photo of a catREAL
AI-generated image of a catAI
AI-generated image of a catAI
"I love generating with AI. But when I'm hunting for real references, real recipes, real anything, I'm constantly bombarded with AI images. I just need a way to switch to a real view of things."
James Dow, creator of Real View
HOW IT WORKS

Three layers of signal, side by side.

No single trick catches everything — so Real View runs a stack of checks, lightest first, and only reaches for the heavier one when it has to.

Real View: checking 24 images…

You'll see this in the corner of the page while it works. Most pages resolve in a second or two — a big, image-heavy page just takes a beat longer. Nothing's frozen, it's working through what's actually on screen.

01 / METADATA & SOURCE

Metadata & source signals

Reads embedded generator tags left in the file itself, and cross-references the image's source domain against a huge, refreshable list of known AI platforms. Near-instant, and costs nothing.

no setup · always on
02 / VISUAL MODEL

On-device visual model

When metadata and domain give no answer, an ML model examines the actual pixels — right there in your browser. Nothing is ever uploaded or sent anywhere. In our own testing it calls roughly 84% of images correctly — not perfect, and it stays quiet rather than guess when unsure.

opt-in · private
03 / YOUR CORRECTIONS

Your own corrections

Right-click any image to flag a miss or fix a false positive. Your corrections are remembered instantly, for you — no waiting on anyone else.

personal · instant
WORKS EVERYWHERE YOU SEARCH

The sites people actually hunt references on.

Google Images, Bing and DuckDuckGo hide an image's true source behind their own proxies — Real View resolves it anyway. Pinterest gets its own dedicated hook.

Google Images Pinterest Bing Images DuckDuckGo Google Images Pinterest Bing Images DuckDuckGo
WHO IT'S FOR

Three ways people actually use it.

01

Reference & mood-boarding

Hunting for real photographic reference — lighting, texture, an actual pose — for illustration, concept art or photography, without forty AI renders in the way.

02

Sourcing & fact-checking

Checking whether a product shot, recipe photo, listing image or news photo is an actual photograph before you trust it, cook it, or buy it.

03

Browsing without the slop

Cleaning up Pinterest boards and Google Image feeds that have quietly filled up with synthetic content over the last couple of years.

FEATURES

Built for actually finding things.

Blur, or hide entirely

Choose whether AI images get softly blurred (click to reveal) or disappear from the page completely.

Works where you search

Google Images, Bing, DuckDuckGo and Pinterest are all specifically supported, resolving true source links these sites hide by default.

Private by architecture

The visual model runs entirely on-device via WebAssembly. Your images never leave your machine — there is no server to send them to.

Outlines real sources too

Photos from known real-photo sources — Unsplash, Getty, press wires — get a quiet confirmation outline, not just AI images a warning.

Live progress, always visible

A quiet on-page indicator shows exactly what's being checked right now — never a silent black box.

One person, no upsells

Built and maintained solo — no company, no premium upsell waiting behind a paywall. If it saves you the scroll, a coffee or a GitHub Sponsors pledge goes a long way.

ON-DEVICE, END TO END

Nothing you see is ever uploaded.

The visual classifier runs as WebAssembly inside your browser, in a document Chrome keeps alive just for this. No image, no URL, no browsing history — none of it touches a server. Not ours; there isn't one.

Runs in-browser (WASM) Zero image uploads No account required Open detection logic
QUESTIONS

Before you install.

Will this slow down my browsing?
No. Metadata and domain checks are near-instant. The optional visual model only ever runs on images actually visible on your screen, a couple at a time — never a whole page's backlog at once.
Does it work on sites other than Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo and Pinterest?
Yes — those four get dedicated source-resolution because they hide an image's real origin behind a proxy. Every other site still gets metadata and domain-list detection out of the box.
What happens to images it's not sure about?
It leaves them alone. An inconclusive image is shown exactly as normal — Real View never guesses.
Is my data ever sent anywhere?
No. The visual model runs entirely on-device via WebAssembly. There's no server component to send anything to, even if we wanted to.
How do you make money from this?
I don't, really — Real View is an independent, one-person project, not a business. If it saves you the scroll, you're welcome to buy me a coffee or back it on GitHub Sponsors. No account, no catch, no upsell hiding behind it.
GET STARTED

Stop scrolling past fakes.

No account · works out of the box · one toggle, and you're done.