Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

VS Code VS Select & Search

Compare VS Code VS Select & Search and see what are their differences

VS Code logo VS Code

Build and debug modern web and cloud applications, by Microsoft

Select & Search logo Select & Search

Tired of rightโ€‘clicking, saving, opening tabs and uploading just to run an image search? Select & Search turns that 5โ€‘step pain into 1 instant action - one selection, get results from 40+ search engines.
  • VS Code Landing page
    Landing page //
    2024-10-09
  • Select & Search Capture Tool
    Capture Tool //
    2026-02-22
  • Select & Search Details Page
    Details Page //
    2026-02-22

Ever spotted a product in a video, a logo in a presentation, a pattern in a design, or a detail inside a locked-down image and wished you could search for it right away?

Traditional reverse-image search only works on standalone, clickable images. It breaks the moment you want to search inside a YouTube frame, a Zoom call, a PDF, a Figma canvas, or a protected image.

Select & Search fixes that by turning your cursor into a visual search superpower.

With a quick drag over any area of your screen, Select & Search captures exactly what youโ€™re looking at and sends it straight to the search engine of your choice, no screenshots, no saving files, no manual uploads.

VS Code features and specs

  • Cross-platform
    VS Code works on Windows, macOS, and Linux, providing a consistent development experience across different operating systems.
  • Extensibility
    A vast library of extensions allows users to add functionalities like debuggers, linters, and themes, making it highly customizable.
  • Integrated Git
    Built-in Git integration makes it easy to manage version control tasks directly within the editor.
  • Performance
    Lightweight compared to full-fledged IDEs, ensuring good performance even on systems with limited resources.
  • IntelliSense
    Advanced code completion and refactoring tools help improve coding efficiency and reduce errors.
  • Community Support
    A strong and active community provides extensive support, tutorials, and third-party extensions.
  • Debugging
    Robust debugging tools for various languages and frameworks are available out of the box.
  • Free and Open-Source
    VS Code is completely free to use and open-source, which is beneficial for both individual developers and organizations.

Possible disadvantages of VS Code

  • Limited IDE Features
    While extensible, it may lack some advanced features found in dedicated IDEs out of the box.
  • Extension Management
    Managing and configuring a large number of extensions can become cumbersome and sometimes lead to performance issues.
  • Learning Curve
    Although user-friendly, it has a steeper learning curve for beginners due to its numerous features and customization options.
  • Memory Usage
    Despite being lightweight, it can consume a significant amount of memory when multiple extensions are installed.
  • Update Frequency
    Frequent updates may sometimes introduce bugs or require users to adapt to new changes quickly.
  • Internet Dependency
    Some features and extensions may require an internet connection to function optimally.
  • Telemetry
    By default, VS Code collects usage data, which might be a concern for users sensitive about data privacy. However, this can be disabled.

Select & Search features and specs

  • Selection Tool
    Drag a Screen Capture/Selection Tool Anywhere on your Browser Screen to Select that Area and Search it on Your Selected Search Engine
  • Shortcut (Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + S)
    Use this shortcut to instantly get the Screen Capture/Selection Tool without needing to open anything or click anywhere.
  • Context Menu Options
    There are some cool Context Menu (right-click menu) options, discover yourself!

Analysis of VS Code

Overall verdict

  • Yes, VS Code is generally considered a good choice for developers due to its flexibility, efficiency, and strong community support. It is lightweight, fast, and user-friendly, catering to both novice and experienced developers.

Why this product is good

  • VS Code, developed by Microsoft, is a widely popular and versatile code editor. It offers a robust extension ecosystem, which allows developers to customize their workflow and coding environment extensively. Additionally, VS Code supports numerous programming languages right out of the box and provides features like IntelliSense, debugging, Git integration, and a built-in terminal, making it a powerful tool for developers.

Recommended for

  • Web developers looking for a comprehensive yet lightweight coding environment.
  • Software developers who need an editor with extensive language support and customization options.
  • Beginner programmers who would benefit from a feature-rich editor that can grow with their skills.
  • Developers interested in an open-source tool with continuous updates and community-driven enhancements.

Analysis of Select & Search

Overall verdict

  • Select & Search appears to be a niche browser tool (likely a Chrome/Edge extension) that lets users highlight or select text on a webpage and instantly search it via a preferred search engine. Based on its purpose, it's a good lightweight utility for improving browsing efficiency, though it lacks the brand recognition or extensive reviews of more established productivity extensions.

Why this product is good

  • Simplifies web searches by eliminating the need to copy-paste text manually
  • Likely lightweight and fast since it serves a single, focused function
  • Can integrate with multiple search engines or services depending on configuration
  • Saves time for users who frequently research terms while reading online content
  • Simple, distraction-free utility without unnecessary bloat or complex features

Recommended for

  • Researchers and students who frequently look up terms while reading online
  • Casual browsers who want a faster way to search selected text
  • Users who prefer minimalist browser extensions over multi-feature tools
  • People who do a lot of reading and fact-checking across multiple tabs
  • Anyone looking for a simple alternative to manually copying and pasting text into search engines

VS Code videos

My New Favorite Text Editor - Visual Studio Code

More videos:

  • Review - 7 reasons why I switched to Visual Studio Code from Sublime Text

Select & Search videos

Select & Search Browser Extension | 4vidit

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to VS Code and Select & Search)
Text Editors
100 100%
0% 0
Chrome Extensions
0 0%
100% 100
IDE
100 100%
0% 0
Search Engine
0 0%
100% 100

Questions & Answers

As answered by people managing VS Code and Select & Search.

What's the story behind your product?

Select & Search's answer:

Many times while browsing, I just want to search a specific part of my screen, an image, a product, a logo, or even a small detail, But.. Existing tools either donโ€™t work on certain sites, are locked to one search engine, or simply miss results. Thatโ€™s why I built Select & Search.

It lets you instantly select anything on your screen and search it across nearly 50 different search engines, giving you control instead of relying on a single algorithm.

This idea came from a real problem I faced: Google Lens couldnโ€™t identify a product I was browsing, but searching the same image across multiple engines finally gave me the result. That moment made it clear that one engine isnโ€™t enough.

Along with screen selection search, the extension also includes: - Search history to revisit past finds - Upload an image manually to search - Find all images on a webpage and search them at once

If youโ€™ve ever felt stuck trying to identify or find something online, I hope this tool makes your browsing a lot more powerful.

Would love your feedback and ideas, happy to improve it further!

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare VS Code and Select & Search

VS Code Reviews

  1. dksinden
    ยท Working at SpeechKit ยท

Boost Your Productivity with These Top Text Editors and IDEs
Visual Studio Code, commonly known as VS Code, is a powerful and extensible code editor developed by Microsoft. With its rich ecosystem of extensions and features like IntelliSense, debugging, and Git integration, VS Code enhances your coding productivity.
Source: convesio.com
13 Best Text Editors to Speed up Your Workflow
Finally, the Visual Studio Code website has numerous tabs for you to learn about the software. The documentation page walks you through steps like the setup and working with different languages. Youโ€™re also able to check out some tips and tricks and learn all of the Visual Studio Code keyboard shortcuts. Along with a blog, updates page, extensions library and API...
Source: kinsta.com
Jupyter Notebook & 10 Alternatives: Data Notebook Review [2023]
Previously, VS Code was more suited to developers or engineers due to its lack of data analysis capabilities, but since 2020, the VS Code team has collaborated with the Jupyter team to create an integrated notebook within VS Code. The end result is a fantastic IDE workbook for data analysis.
Source: lakefs.io
The Best IDEs for Java Development: A Comparative Analysis
Overview: Although not a traditional IDE, VS Code has gained popularity as a lightweight code editor.
Source: dev.to
20 Best Diff Tools to Compare File Contents on Linux
Visual studio code is a code editor made by Microsoft. It supports several development operations like debugging, task running, and version control. It works on Linux, macOS and Windows operating systems.
Source: linuxopsys.com

Select & Search Reviews

We have no reviews of Select & Search yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, VS Code seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 1215 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

VS Code mentions (1215)

  • History of JavaScript: Browser wars, ECMAScript, Node.js, TypeScript, and React
    Visual Studio Code, a code editor created by Microsoft, was first introduced on April 29, 2015, at the Build conference. - Source: dev.to / 3 days ago
  • How to Get Your First Tool Online
    The step up from there is an editor with a built-in agent like Cursor, Google Antigravity, Windsurf, or VS Code with a coding extension. These are code editors with an AI agent living inside them, and the difference is the responsible party for getting things from place to place. Instead of the software creator shuttling code between windows, the AI agent edits the project files directly and runs the GitHub and... - Source: dev.to / 17 days ago
  • Agentic Engineering: What Does AI Coding Really Cost?
    For IDE-heavy teams, BYOK (bring your own key) can be interesting, no matter whether you live in WebStorm or VS Code. On the JetBrains side, the JetBrains AI plans and Junie BYOK docs allow it, and most VS Code AI extensions offer the same idea: keep the IDE, connect provider keys, pay the provider. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Best Markdown Editors for Developers
    Option 1: Raw editing in IDE. You open the .md file in VS Code or whatever you use. Syntax highlighting shows you the structure. Maybe you toggle a preview pane. This works for quick edits but becomes painful for anything involving tables, diagrams, or complex formatting. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Document Generation for Developers: Security, Compliance, and Build-vs-Buy Decisions for the Template-Plus-Data Pipeline
    You'll need Python 3.8+ and pip for the quickstart, with venv recommended for isolation. Install the requests library for HTTP calls. VS Code with the Python extension works well as an editor, though PyCharm or Sublime Text work equally well. You'll also need a free Foxit developer account. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
View more

Select & Search mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Select & Search yet. Tracking of Select & Search recommendations started around Feb 2026.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing VS Code and Select & Search, you can also consider the following products

Sublime Text - Sublime Text is a sophisticated text editor for code, html and prose - any kind of text file. You'll love the slick user interface and extraordinary features. Fully customizable with macros, and syntax highlighting for most major languages.

Image Search for Google - Image Search for Google is a free image searching app by Risiner for Android devices only.

Vim - Highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing

WorldCompliance Search Tool - Anti Money Laundering

Node.js - Node.js is a platform built on Chrome's JavaScript runtime for easily building fast, scalable network applications

Reverse Image Search - Adds an option to the context menu to search with an image on Google, Bing, Yandex, TinEye, SauceNAO, IQDB or custom search engines. You can also choose more than one and they will be shown in a submenu!