Google has just a dropped a bombshell on the Internet. No, I’m not talking about how they’re shutting down Google Reader this July — that’s old news. Rather, the company, in a move that Internet users the world have to wonder why it took so long, has added an animated GIF filter to its image search.

Why is this awesome? Well, it makes images like the one up top so much easier to find. Just type in what you’re looking for on Google Images as you normally would, then you should see a new “Animated” option under Google’s drop-down search tools. Select it and boom, you’re left with all the animated GIFs you could possibly want.

I know a lot of people that rely on specific sites or even their own personal collections stored on their hard drive to whip up the most appropriate GIF or meme during forum arguments or maybe just to comment because there was absolutely no better way to say it than with an animated GIF. Now, all that’s just a Google search anyway. If Google didn’t decide to turn off Google Reader, I’d probably say they’re kings of the internetz right now.

And with that, I shall leave you with this:

The future starts now indeed. Any favorite GIFs you’d like to share? Post them in the comments below!

[via Google, CNET]