I have to use Windows on my work computer and I am finding it hard to get FOSS applications on Windows that can do stuff like
- Record a video (like SimpleVideoRecorder does)
- Take a screenshot (there’s snip, but it isn’t very customizable)
- Unzip .zip files
Just the routine things I used to take for granted on Linux, so I was wondering if there was a FOSS app store for Windows
And it would be very helpful if someone could suggest alternative for
- SimpleVideoRecorder
- Archive Manager
Even the apps I installed for these things either had ads or asked me for payment to record more than 2 minutes of video, I am pretty sure there are FOSS apps to do these things out there, but I don’t know where :')
PS: To everyone who has tried to help, thank you very much. I was feeling guilty for not replying to most of you, so I thought I would reply to all of ya, but funnily enough, lemmy had had enough of my gratitude!
- OBS Studio, or even Xbox Game Bar (built-in, but might be disabled at your work PC)
- ShareX
- 7-Zip
To be fair, these tools are all already built-in
- Xbox Game Bar (Win+G)
- Windows screenshot (Win+S / Win+Shift+s)
- File Explorer (Win+E) can handle .zip, even preview them quite nicely.
I realise these are not open source (and others have already given great open-source options I would give, as well). But you’re using Windows already, so why not use Windows?
File explorer’s built in archiver is still lagging behind, while it’s mostly usable, last time I tried to open a password protected rar, and it didn’t show a pw dialog just failed silently. 7zip opened it correctly
Just one little addition: win+shift+s for snipping tool. Let’s you select a region, window or whole screen.
Added!
Once I downloaded, installed and used 7zip to extract a .zip archive while Windows Exploder was extracting the same file.
Yeah but those tools are very inferior. The GUI of 7z is much better for any task, it even adds right click shortcuts to common actions to your files. Same with greenshot. Haven’t ever used the game bar’s recorder so can’t tell about that, but once you learn the very basics of OBS (which is the location of the record button) it’s much more flexible, even without that flexibility being in the way.
Everyone else is already giving those, so like I stated I wouldn’t repeat them here.
I just added the information that there are also built-in tools for these, this information was missing from the comments.
I have to use Windows on my work computer and I am finding it hard to get FOSS applications on Windows that can do stuff like
The Gold standard in the screen recording world is OBS. It’s not only available for Linux, but also for Windows and, well, is the gold standard. If you ask the question if OBS can do this-or-that regarding screen recording, the answer generally is yes (or “yes, via plugin”). Just use OBS on all platforms, it’s clearly the most mature screen recording tool out there.
Video recorder: OBS
Screenshot utility: built into most desktops
Archive manager: Built into most file managers
For screenshots look at Greenshot.
For screenshots, I’ve been pushing Greenshot as it has built in editing capabilities and has been quite stable on Windows 11
For .zip files, I still stick with 7-zip. It does what it does and has never given me issue.
For screenshots I recommend Greenshot. Simple to use and good annotation tools.
Interesting, I might keep that in the back of my mind as a backup for ShareX
Check out scoop and chocolatey
And winget.
For screenshot, you can use Flameshot which do have a Windows version and even a macOS version:
ShareX and .7z
- Windows has built in simple zip manager. If you need more, go with 7-zip as others suggested.
7-zip is amazing! thank you!
Windows comes with pretty good tools for these already.
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Game Bar can do this and is built in, or ShareX for short clips
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Snipping tool is pretty full featured and built in. ShareX is also good.
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Windows handles ZIP natively.
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Pictures: Snagit. Videos: Camtasia.
WSL
flameshot for screenshots
