Record your screen on any distro without fighting OBS configuration or a 30 second cap.
Open REQO in Chrome or Edge on your Linux machine and hit record. There is no installer, no extension and no account needed to start.
Choose a screen, a single window or a browser tab, and add your webcam and microphone if you want them.
The moment you stop, the recording opens in the editor. Trim it, cut filler words out of the transcript, add captions, then download it or send a link.
GNOME has a recorder built in: Ctrl + Shift + Alt + R starts it, a red dot appears in the status bar, and a WebM lands in Videos. It is invisible and instant, which is lovely. It also historically capped recordings at 30 seconds unless you changed a gsettings key, and it captures no audio at all, which sends most people looking elsewhere within a minute.
Elsewhere is usually OBS Studio, which is superb and completely disproportionate for recording a two minute walkthrough. Scenes, sources, encoder settings and a bitrate decision, before you have pressed record once.
A browser recorder sits in the gap: nothing to install on a machine you may not have root on, no encoder settings to reason about, audio that works, and an editor attached so the recording is trimmed and shareable a minute after you stop.
| GNOME recorder | OBS Studio | REQO | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup | None | Scenes and encoder config | None |
| Audio | None | Full control | Mic, plus tab audio |
| Length limit | Capped by default on older versions | None | None |
| Editing | None | None | Full editor |
| Output | WebM | MKV or MP4 | MP4, plus a share link |
| Needs root to install | Built in | Usually yes | No |
Screen capture on Wayland goes through the desktop portal rather than straight to the display server, which is why some older recording tools show a black rectangle on a Wayland session and work fine on X11. Browser capture uses the same portal the desktop expects, so the picker you get is the system one and it behaves.
If a capture does come out black, the usual fix is to pick a specific window or a browser tab rather than the whole screen, since portal permissions are granted per surface.
GNOME’s built-in recorder starts with Ctrl + Shift + Alt + R and saves a WebM to Videos, but it records no audio and older versions stop after 30 seconds. Recording in the browser avoids both limits and gives you an editor afterwards.
For a full production setup, no, OBS is the right tool. For recording a walkthrough and sending it to someone, a browser recorder with an editor attached gets there far faster and needs no configuration.
Yes. Capture goes through the standard desktop portal, so you get the system share dialog. If a full-screen capture comes out black, share a single window or a browser tab instead.
Chrome and Chromium, and Edge where you have it. Screen capture support in other browsers on Linux is less consistent.
No. The recorder runs in Chrome or Edge, so there is nothing to download, no extension to approve and no admin rights to ask IT for.
Yes. Recording, editing and sharing are free with an account, and there is no time limit on a recording. Free exports carry a small REQO badge; Pro removes it.
the GNOME built-in recorder is fine for capturing raw footage. The gap is everything after: you still have to trim the dead air at the start, cut the bit where you lost your train of thought, and get the file to someone. That is the part REQO does in the same tab.
Yes. Capture the screen with your webcam in a corner overlay, and reposition or resize it afterwards in the editor.
As long as you need. There is no cap on recording length on the free plan.
Screen recorder
Record your screen on Windows 10 or 11 without installing anything, then trim and share it in the same tab.
OpenScreen recorder
Record your Mac screen without QuickTime gymnastics, and get the audio problem solved on the way.
OpenScreen recorder
Record and edit on a Chromebook without an extension, an Android app or admin approval.
OpenFree, no install, and the recording opens straight in a full editor.