LICEcap

If you save a screen recording in a video format, you may find it difficult to share the file over the Internet, due to its large size. Besides that, the file's format may not be supported by all media players. LICEcap offers a better solution. You can use it to record anything on your screen and save the recording as a GIF file. The application's simple design and straightforward functionality give you the possibility of recording your screen as fast as possible, without making any complex configurations.

LICEcap is free and open source. Besides creating desktop and Start menu shortcuts, during the installation process, you can also include the application's source code. It works on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 8, as well as various Mac OS X versions.

When launched, LICEcap will immediately display its grabber, which is a window with a transparent background. You can move and resize the grabber however you want and start recording by clicking a button, located in the lower right corner of the window. The application will record everything within its grabber, including mouse movements and clicks.

The grabber's size can be set manually as well, by specifying a width and height in its lower left corner. Additionally, you can set a maximum frame rate, in the same area. Before it starts recording, the application will ask you to specify a name, path and format for the output file.

It is also possible to make a few minor settings, on the Save As window, like activating a title frame, with a certain duration, displaying the elapsed time, recording mouse clicks or repeating the GIF animation for a certain number of times. Furthermore, you can set the application to save your recording in its own native format, which offers a better quality, compression ratio and more accurate time stamping.