Screen Awesome
The free screen recorder that cannot upload your video
Start new thread

Screen Awesome - The free screen recorder that cannot upload your video

by
ā€¢
Every screen recorder promises not to misuse your recordings. Screen Awesome can't: it requests zero host permissions, so Chrome itself blocks it from reaching any server. Check it in chrome://extensions before you install. Record a tab, screen or camera to MP4. Auto-zoom glides a virtual camera to every click. Screenshot a region or a full scrolling page. Annotate with arrows, blur, redaction, step counters and text ā€” all editable vectors. Free, unlocked, no account, no watermark.

Add a comment

Replies

Best
Maker
šŸ“Œ
Hey Product Hunt šŸ‘‹ I built Screen Awesome after recording a bug report on a page full of client data and realising I had no idea where that video was going. Every capture extension has a privacy policy. Screen Awesome has a limitation instead: host_permissions is empty in its manifest, and Chrome will not let an extension with no host permissions make a request to any server. No account, no telemetry, no sync ā€” not because I promise not to, but because there is nothing in the code that could. You can verify it before installing: chrome://extensions ā†’ Screen Awesome ā†’ Site access: none. The other half of it is that everything is unlocked. Arrows, blur and redaction, step counters, speech bubbles, crop, text in any system font ā€” the tools that are usually the paid tier. Annotations stay as vectors, so you can move, restyle, re-edit or undo any of them later. Three bits I'm proud of: ā€¢ Auto-zoom ā€” while you record a tab it samples your clicks, then the studio replays the footage through a virtual camera that glides in on each one. Preview it live, switch it off, or bake it into the export. ā€¢ MP4 out wherever Chrome can encode it, so the file drops straight into Slack, Docs or Premiere with no conversion step. WebM and GIF export too. ā€¢ Full-page screenshots that scroll and stitch ā€” including the fixed header/sidebar handling that normally stripes the image. Honest limits: Chrome and Chromium only for now, no Firefox or Safari. Most of my testing has been on Windows. And because everything is local, uninstalling deletes your captures ā€” bulk-download first. It's free, there's no paid tier, and I'm not planning one. What I'd love your take on: does "verifiable" land better than "trust us" for you? And if you make screencasts often ā€” what's the one thing your current tool still makes you do by hand? ā€” Nitin

Verifiable lands better, but the claim has a shelf life. Empty host_permissions is true today and Chrome auto updates extensions, so 1.4 can quietly add one and nobody checks chrome://extensions twice. If you want it to hold, publish the manifest diff with every release and link it from the store listing, that's the thing someone can keep checking without trusting you. The one I still do by hand is re-recording a whole take because a single sentence came out wrong.

Can it record screen videos?

Maker

Ā Yes ā€” that's the main thing it does. Record the current tab, a full screen or window, or just your camera, with mic and system/tab audio as toggles and an optional camera bubble. Stop, and it opens a studio to trim and export MP4, WebM or GIF, all locally.

This is a very thoughtful approach to privacy. Verifiable definitely lands better than "trust us" because users can confirm the limitation themselves instead of relying on another policy page.


The combination of zero host permissions. Great work, Nitin, and congratulations on the launch!

Maker

Ā Thank you

I have tried multiple times to use this tool for recording purposes but have not been able to start. Would you please check the issue? I am using a Mac

.

Maker

Ā Sorry about that ā€” and thank you for telling me instead of just uninstalling.

The most likely cause on a Mac is an OS-level block rather than the extension itself: System Settings ā†’ Privacy & Security ā†’ Screen Recording, and check that Chrome is enabled. The catch is that the grant only applies after you fully quit and reopen Chrome (Cmd-Q, not just closing the window). If Chrome was never enabled there, the share dialog never appears and recording just silently doesn't start.

One other thing worth ruling out: if you were on a chrome:// page or the Web Store tab when you hit record, Chrome blocks capture there ā€” try it on any normal page.

Either way, this is on me to surface better. Right now the extension reports the system block as a cancelled dialog, which tells you nothing useful. A build that detects it and shows the actual fix is already written and goes to the store this week.

If neither of those is it ā€” which source did you pick (This tab / Screen / Camera), and did you see any dialog at all? Happy to dig into it directly:

Mac users have Quick Time for screen recording. It's easy to use and free. Apple has an emphasis on security. What makes your product different?

Maker

Ā Fair question ā€” QuickTime is good, and for plenty of recordings it's the right call. The difference is after you stop: it records pixels, it doesn't know a click happened. Screen Awesome records the cursor track too, so the studio auto-zooms to each click, then trims and exports MP4, WebM or GIF ā€” no editor round-trip. It's also tab-scoped rather than whole-screen (no stray notifications), does full-page scrolling screenshots, and works for teammates who aren't on a Mac. Not claiming to beat Apple on security; just that a browser extension asking for zero site access is unusual, and you can verify it before installing.

Love that you can verify the zero-permissions claim in chrome://extensions before installing. The auto-zoom that follows every click feels like actual thoughtful craft, not a checkbox feature.

Maker

Ā Thank you ā€” that's exactly the pair I was hoping someone would notice.