Freeware Mission – Best Free Screen Capture Utility

by Mike 26 July 2008 21 Comments

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Rating: 1.0/5 (1 vote cast)

The Freeware Mission has it’s first anniversary: the 10th episode! Until now all went very well, my computer is feeling great with only freeware on its hard disks! Today I’m going to try to find the best free screen capture utility. That’s very important for me, because I make a lot of screen captures for this blog, and not only. Let’s see what I found.

Until a while ago the best free screen capture program was FastStone Capture, but now it’s shareware, so I have to find something else. I found and reviewed here a free program called ScreenHunter 5 Free, a very simple and easy to use screen capture utility. Now I want a program that could do more than just capture the images.

After testing a few freeware programs I decided to keep ScreenshotCaptor: it’s free and it has a lot of features. The only annoying thing is that it requires a license key that you can get for free by signing up to their forum. The key will be available for six months, and after that you’ll get another one just like you got the first. After a year you’ll get a lifetime key. Of course, if you donate you get the lifetime key instantly along with other goodies they say. Well, I guess they have to make a living somehow.

Now about the features. ScreenshotCaptor really has what it takes to become my favorite free screen capture utility: lots of capture modes: Multimon (multiple monitors), Desktop, Active Window, Region, Windows Object(each mode has a hotkey for quick access); effects, including automatic active window enhancement; support for 3rd party user configurable tools, including file browsers and image editors; automatically finds boundaries of non-rectangular/themed windows; autoscroll capture for windows too big for screen; thumbnail maker.

You can download ScreenshotCaptor from here, it’s free!

My Evaluation	8.5
Operating System	Windows All
Size	8.52 MB
Author	DonationCoder
Version Tested	2.37.0.3

The Freeware Mission will continue! In the next episodes I’ll choose my free Media Player and free Audio Player. Stay tuned!

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21 Comments »

James said:

Great freeware. Easy Screen Capture is another full featured screen capture software that can capture any part of screen from your desktop, even scrolling windows and entire web pages.

# 28 July 2008 at 1:51 am

Johnny Karp said:

@james
Thanks for stopping by and for your nice comment. About Easy Screen Capture, it might be good, but it’s not free, so it won’t fit into my Freeware Mission.

# 28 July 2008 at 4:05 am

mouser said:

I’m the author of Screenshot Captor and I was very happy to read this.. Thank you for the kind words and I’m glad you liked it.

If you have suggestions please do post them on our forum — a new version will be out soon and it’s always nice to hear feature requests from people who use the program.

-mouser

# 2 August 2008 at 4:28 am

Johnny Karp said:

@mouser
Hey mouser! I’m very happy that you visited the blog. I’m using your Screenshot Captor and so far i’m very happy with it. I’m looking forward to testing the new version!

# 2 August 2008 at 5:34 am

Anonymous said:

I found Jing last week. it can capture anything from your desktop and even make a move of it .

afterwards it uploads the capture to screencast, flickr etc.

its free

http://screencast.com/t/euPJl764y

# 5 September 2008 at 12:52 pm

Johnny Karp said:

I tested Jing in the Best Free Screen Session Recorder episode. But I chose another program called CamStudio, I think it’s better mainly because you can capture to avi or swf.

# 5 September 2008 at 2:25 pm

Jonno said:

Camstudio is THE best for video capture.

I dunno why FastStone Capture is “shareware”. I use it on my comp, and I’ve never seen a limit of features, or a time limit, or anything. But then I don’t screen cap too often, so maybe I never run into it. But I love that program like the dickens. Only thing I don’t like is how there is a delay between the “Print Screen” button and the capture.

# 2 October 2008 at 11:07 pm

Johnny Karp said:

@Jonno
Only the latest release of FastStoneCapture is shareware, the last freeware release is still pretty good though.

# 7 October 2008 at 2:49 pm

Spiderman4 said:

Hello all, have you tried (HoverSnap) by http://www.hoverdesk.net/freeware.htm? this is a nice and simple snapshot tool to use.

# 26 October 2008 at 11:33 pm

comprar cialis generico said:

Yes I agree with you!

# 29 November 2008 at 12:34 pm

John852 said:

Very nice site!

# 11 December 2008 at 8:34 am

Bilgisayarınız İçin 72 Ücretsiz Yazılım | catlakses.com said:

[...] Screenshot Captor – Great screenshot capture program, lots of capture modes – Multimon (multiple monitors), Desktop, Active Window, Region, Windows Object. Supports multi-monitor and includes editing features for the screenshots. [...]

# 23 January 2009 at 3:23 pm

Nick C said:

I’ve been using GrabCaptureScreen for years. It is no longer updated…but has suited my needs very well with lots of neat options like timed captures autosaves, region or window capture, cursor insertion…I don’t know if it does multiple monitors or anything, though. I thought I’d try somethign else to compare it to so I’m going to give ScreenshotCaptor a go. Take it easy.

# 9 March 2009 at 2:53 pm

Johnny Karp said:

@Nick C
I never tried GrabCaptureScreen, but I’d definitely suggest you should give ScreenshotCaptor a try if you want a more advanced program. I would also suggest PicPick, a great program in the same category, my favorite for now.

# 10 March 2009 at 12:00 pm

Jon said:

Another great Screen Capture program is SimplyCapture.
http://dpi.hypermart.net/scapture.htm is where you can find it.
I have just started using Screenshot Captor and love it, but I like SimplyCapture’s interface better, Probably because it’s more easy to use, and more simple. But overall (and I just started using this program), Screenshot Captor is a great program!
-Jon!

# 16 July 2009 at 3:08 am

Jon said:

I also started using PicPick, I really love it, I got used to it’s interface very quickly, and it has many more feautures then SimplyCapture. SimplyCapture actually has no features except for a super simple interface to capturing images in the .bmp format. The only other feature is that it can be converted into a .jpg picture in the same program.

# 20 July 2009 at 7:34 pm

Johnny Karp said:

I’m happy you like it Jon, I’ve been using it on a daily basis since I wrote the review and it never let me down. It’s one of my favorite freeware programs overall.

# 20 July 2009 at 8:35 pm

Jon said:

I am now very happy with PicPick! To Johnny Karp, why isn’t PicPick in this position?

# 1 August 2009 at 6:35 pm

Jon said:

Oh, I see that PicPick is in this position now,right?

# 1 August 2009 at 6:41 pm

Johnny Karp said:

Indeed Jon, indeed The up-to-date favorites are always in the Best Freeware List pages