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Here are the best tools that let you record everything that happens in Windows, along with audio and even commentary

There are many reasons why you might want to record your screen rather than take a screenshot. Sometimes a still image of a Windows app isn't enough and what you really want is a videoshowing the on-screen action. A screenshot is the equivalent of a photo, but recording a video your screen can better help to explain to someone how to fix a problem when you're offering technical support, or you might want to make videos for YouTube. You might want to record a gaming session and share it with friends, or something else entirely.

In addition to just the on-screen action, your movie can include an audio commentary or, if you prefer, on-screen annotations or captions to explain what youre doing. Just like screen shots, the end result can easily be emailed, or hosted on your website.

See also: how to take a screenshot in Windows 10

As with most software, not all screen recorders are created equal and while there are free versions, they typically lack the flexibility and video-editing options of paid-for products. Here we've rounded up a range including both free and paid-for packages so you can choose the one that suits your needs.

If it's not Windows you want to capture, check out our separate guide on how to record an iPad's screen

Flashback Express is a completely free screen recorder for Windows. It's easy to use, quick to download and offers the kind of feature set that you'd fully expect to have to pay for.

Indeed, it looks and works a lot like Camtasia (which costs 185) yet requires only your email address, to which the free licence key is sent.

There are tutorial videos, but they're barely needed as the dark-style interface is intuitive and the first-time use guides you to the right buttons to press anyway.

Once you've finished your recording the editor opens and you can tweak your recording. Here you'll notice the limitations, such as being able to crop / zoom in on a region but not being able to choose the position of the crop: it's centred on the mouse cursor.

If you want to unlock the full feature set, you can upgrade to FlashBack Pro for $49 (39.50).

Read our FlashBack Express review

Built into Windows 10 is Game DVR. As the name suggests, it can record gameplay clips (and also screenshots).

Compared to utilities such as OBS Studio which can stream games live, Game DVR is extremely basic. But it's easy to use and has a couple of neat features.

Simply press Windows + G and the Game Bar will appear. You can hit the record button to start recording the game in the background. Then, in the game press Windows + Alt + G to save the previous 30 seconds of play.

To start a recording in game, press Windows + Alt + R. Afterwards you can share the file as you would any video file.

For the full tutorial, see How to record games in Windows 10.

Standing for Open Broadcaster Software, this open source screen recorder has a steep learning curve. It's not really for beginners, although it's primarily aimed at those wanting to stream using Twitch or YouTube.

But you can just as well use it to record what happens on the Windows Desktop. Despite being free, it's not a trial and won't limit the length of capture or add a watermark.

There's help on the website, but to save you time, when you first use OBS Studio, click the + button in the Sources box and select 'Display capture' and you'll see your desktop (you can specify which monitor if you have more than one).

Alternatively, you can select Game capture and it will happily record full-screen games, something that a lot of software refuses to do.

Camtasia(previously called Camtasia Studio)is a powerful screen recorder tool that makes it easy to record what's happening on your PC, convert the results into a polished presentation, then share it with the world.

As well as recording applications, you can also use it to record (and subsequently edit) games too.

When youre making tutorials, you can highlight the mouse pointer and clicks, as well as easily zooming into an area of the screen to make it easier to follow what youre doing.

The drawback is the price. At 185, its only for those who are going to do a lot of recording and need Camtasias editing tools.

Plus, as well as Windows, its also available for macOS.

Read our Camtasia review

CamStudio is open-source software which is completely free to use for personal as well as commercial projects.

It hasnt been updated since 2013, and only outputs in SWF format (streaming Flash video) but it does a lot for free. You can record only a portion of the screen if you like, and you can add captions if youre making a video for Facebook or you just dont want to record your own voice.

And given that there are plenty of free video converters, you can still produce an MP4 video for free.

Possibly best of all, it wont watermark your videos like free or trial versions of some competitors, but it lacks the post-capture video editing tools youll find elsewhere.

Screencast-O-Matic records your computer's audio and video and lets you edit the area of your screen that you want to record.

With the free version you can only record 15 minutes of video, and sticks a Screen-O-Matic watermark on your videos.

You can publish your videos in MP4, AVI and FLV formats as well as automatically upload them to YouTube.

The full version costs 10 per year ($15) and lets you record as much video as you want, and it has the ability to do so in HD and as you would expect removes the watermark.

Able to capture both screenshots and video of your desktop, Icecream screen recorder is a modern app which has both a free and paid-for version.

It can output MP4 videos, records audio from your laptop or PC's mic, and can also overlay video from a webcam so people can see who you are as you guide them through whatever it is you're doing.

You can draw on screen as you record, too.

However, if you stick with the free version (which is only for personal projects) you're limited to 10-minute recordings in WEBM format and you don't get the full range of editing options either.

The PRO version costs 19.95 from icecreamapps.com

SnagIt 13 is a big update on previous versions of the screen capture software. It's made by the same company as Camtasia, and even though it's primarily a screenshot tool, it can now record and edit video.

Thissounds like it's competing with Camtasia, and to a large degree it is, as long as your capture and editing demands aren't too great.

And although not free, it's considerably more affordable than Camtasia at 46 inc VAT from TechSmith. Plus, there's a free trial so you can see if it does what you need before shelling out.

Steps Recorder has been built into Windows since Windows 7 and you can use it like a screen recorder to get help troubleshooting a problem or even make your own How To guides. Youll find it if you search for Steps recorder in the start menu

Unlike other screen recorders it doesnt output a video, since its mainly designed for troubleshooting Windows problems its full name is Problem Steps Recorder. What you get when you hit Stop is a series of screenshots and captions which explain exactly what you did in that step.

So, on this basis, it may not be what youre after at all, but if you do want an easy way to take a series of screenshots, its certainly convenient.

For a step-by-step guide, see How to use Windows Steps Recorder

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Best free screen recorders - Tech Advisor

A screen from Bynder Orbit.

This week, digital asset management (DAM) provider Bynder is announcing a free DAM product called Orbit.

Essentially, Orbit is a limited-function version of Bynder for small- and medium-sized businesses. The main Bynder software is directed toward enterprises.

Available in the fall, Orbit lets businesses create, store, search and share images, videos and other creative files in the cloud, with access shared by team members. There are no limits on the number of users.

CEO Chris Hall describes Bynder Orbit as the first free and widely available DAM [built] for enterprise grade performance and security.

The DAM tool, which can be branded with a business look and feel, offers automatic file conversion; automatic extraction of metadata, keywords and other relevant info during upload; and AI-powered auto-tagging for search. Free accounts have up to 100 GB of storage, after which there are premium levels of usage.

Why give away a free version?

Hall told me via email that seventy-five percent of marketers at small and medium sized businesses arent familiar with the term Digital Asset Management, and theyre also unaware there is a solution to their problem.

A free, professional product can finally educate marketers on a much wider scale and solve a real problem, he said, after which businesses can increase their storage or graduate to the full Bynder.

See the article here:
Bynder announces free version of its Digital Asset Management ... - MarTech Today

After testing a pilot version in Russia, China, and Nordic countries last year, the Russia-based cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Labs said Tuesday it will begin a global rollout of its free antivirus product.

Timed to coincide with the company's 20th anniversary today, the launch of Kaspersky Free will begin this month and next across the U.S., Canada, the Caribbean and a large swath of the Asia-Pacific region. The software will become available in other parts of the world -- including the Middle East, Africa, the UK, Germany, France, Japan and South Korea -- in phases through late October.

By then, "the whole planet" will be covered, founder/CEO Eugene Kaspersky said in a blog post yesterday. However, while the basic version is free to the masses, most individuals and certainly enterprises will be better off running more sophisticated antivirus software.

Although the free version won't compete with the company's paid antivirus products, Kaspersky Free will cover "all the bare essentials," with protections for files, email and the Web, along with automatic updates, Kaspersky said. Users in the U.S. can download the software now from the company's Web site.

Targets any Cyberthreat 'Regardless of Origin'

Kaspersky said the company has been working to develop the free antivirus program "for a good year-and-a-half," with the goal of reaching users who can't afford premium security software. In his blog post, he took at dig at traditional free offerings ("more holes than Swiss cheese for malware to slip through") as well as Microsoft's latest antivirus system, Windows Defender ("ye gods!")

Long a critic of Microsoft, Kaspersky last year accused the tech giant of making it harder for competing antivirus providers to run their software on devices running the Windows 10 operating system. He said he planned to ask regulators in Europe, Russia, and elsewhere to direct Microsoft to cease "anti-competitive" practices.

In yesterday's blog post, Kaspersky also alluded to critics of his own company by noting the free antivirus software will "detect any cyberthreat regardless of its origin or intention -- even if certain folks don't like it."

U.S. government use of Kaspersky Labs' products has come under increased fire recently, with both NASA's SEWP procurement service and the General Services Administration removing the company from their approved vendor lists earlier this month.

"GSA's priorities are to ensure the integrity and security of U.S. government systems and networks and evaluate products and services available on our contracts using supply chain risk management processes," a GSA spokesperson said in a July 12 email to the federal business technology publication FCW.

Wider Adoption To Drive Machine Learning

In addition to basic antivirus protection, Kaspersky Free will also provide self-defense and quarantine capabilities, Kaspersky said. "This arsenal ensures convenient and safe web surfing (is it still surfing? Sounds a bit 90s to me), working with USB sticks and other portable storage media, and protection against both phishing and infected files being run," he said.

Based on Kaspersky Labs' paid products, the free antivirus is "lighter on system resources and quicker than its big brothers," Kaspersky noted, adding that it is also free of "all the usual nonsense like advertising-oriented user-habit tracking and confidentiality infringements -- which free AV normally suffers badly from in order to make it financially worthwhile to its manufacturers."

Finally, thanks to the machine learning capabilities now deployed in antivirus programs, the more users who install Kaspersky Free, the more effective the software can become, "since the big-data-bases will have more numbers to work with," he said.

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Free Anti-Virus for All? Well, Sort of - CIO Today

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Technavios latest report on the global photo editing software market provides an analysis of the most important trends expected to impact the market outlook from 2017-2021. Technavio defines an emerging trend as a factor that has the potential to significantly impact the market and contribute to its growth or decline.

The global photo editing software market is driven by its use in professional photography, especially in post-production activities. The demand for proprietary software and free software, such as GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), is high in this market. The rising number of free software is a major challenge to the growth of the global photo editing market.

Ishmeet Kaur, a lead analyst from Technavio, specializing in research on enterprise application sector, says, The increased use of photo content in social media has propelled the demand for photo editing software. Online photo editing software is increasingly becoming a popular solution for editing photos. PicMonkey and Fotor are some of the major players in this market.

This report is available at a USD 1,000 discount for a limited time only: View market snapshot before purchasing

Buy 1 Technavio report and get the second for 50% off. Buy 2 Technavio reports and get the third for free.

The top three emerging trends driving the global photo editing software market according to Technavio research analysts are:

Looking for more information on this market? Request a free sample report

Technavios sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report including the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more.

Increasing integration of social media platforms with photo editing features

One of the major uses of photo editing software among non-professional users is for uploading them in social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Snapchat, and Instagram. Social networking sites are providing several editing features to make the uploaded photos look better.

Social networking platforms will provide more focus on photo editing features during the forecast period. This will reduce the dependence on a dedicated photo editing software for mobile phones. For instance, Instagram features all the capabilities of a mobile photo editing software and provides saving options, according to Ishmeet.

Growing number of mobile photo editing software

Nowadays, vendors are providing photo editing software for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. The high processing power of mobile devices is the most important reason for this initiative. For instance, the latest flagship smartphone from Samsung, Galaxy S7, has a Snapdragon 820 chipset by Qualcomm with a 4 GB random access memory.

Snapdragon 820 consists of a 64-bit quad-core CPU and a highly advanced Adreno 530 GPU. It has more clock speed than an Intel Core i3 4005U processor used in a desktop. Another major advantage of mobile devices is that the input method in most of them are through touch screens rather than a mouse, keyboard, or personal computer (PC).

Rising number of face editing software

The growing trend of selfies in social media platforms has increased the demand for face editing software. The number of apps with face editing features, coupled with filters, have increased in the app stores of iOS and Android, two major mobile OS platforms.

The key vendors are as follows:

Browse Related Reports:

About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions.

With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavios report library consists of more than 10,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavios comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com.

Originally posted here:
Photo Editing Software Market - Trends and Forecasts by Technavio - Business Wire (press release)

With news this week of the FruitFly 2 malware which can remotely take control of a Macs webcam, mouse, or keyboards and recurring ransomware attacks on PCs, free antivirus software can be a godsend.

So, what should an antivirus program do? Getting rid of existing malware is just the beginning. Good antivirus software will prevent malicious software from infecting your computer in the first place and steer you away from bad websites.

But malware and viruses are as old as the personal computer and just as enduring.

Fox News has compiled a list of a few programs that provide good protection for your computer, all for free.

APPLE'S BIGGEST ANNOUNCEMENT SINCE 2007? ALL EYES ON 'IPHONE 8'

Avast Free Antivirus 2017:Avast offers a lot for a free anti-malware program. In testing done at PC Mag, Avast blocked 87 percent of the malware samples. It posted excellent scores in hands-on malware and antiphishing tests, according to the publication. It can also perform security checks on your Wi-Fi network and offers something usually not seen in free antivirus software, password management.

Theres browser security as well, which tags websites that are unsafe.

Needless to say, there are premium features that you can pay for. For example, using Avast to set up a private virtual network (VPN) can trigger the paid service. But upgrading to Avasts paid services if you need it as part of your business might not be a bad idea considering how good the free stuff is.

Kaspersky:The Moscow-based cybersecurity and anti-virus purveyor just launched a free service on July 25.

Weve been working on this release for a good year-and-a-half, the company said in a blog post.

What do you get? All the bare essentials, according to the blog post.

Kaspersky Free includes file, email and web antivirus, automatic updates, self-defense, and quarantine and works to protect against malicious websites and phishing. In short, the indispensable basics that no one on the planet should do without, according to Kasperskys post.

The bare bones free protection wont compete against paid-for versions. The latter adds parental control, online payment protection, and secure VPN.

THREE GREAT SMARTPHONE BUYS FOR THE SUMMER Why the seemingly altruistic act? Increasing the number of Kaspersky Free installations improves the quality of protection of all users, according to Kaspersky, including paid users.

Kaspersky has received some negative media attention in the U.S. based on accusations of ties to Russian Intelligence, which Kaspersky has denied.

The free software is available in the U.S., Canada and certain Asia Pacific countries. More regions will be added in the next few months.

AVG AntiVirus Free (2017):AVGs free version includes real-time security updates, scans for both malware and performance issues and stopping malicious downloads before they reach your PC. It also sports a new, simpler interface.

The paid version adds secure personal folders with an extra layer of ransomware protection, an enhanced firewall, and detection of fake websites for safe payments.

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3 best free anti-virus software to protect your computer | Fox News - Fox News