Named & Shamed
Junk offender: Free Snipping Tool
Junk Offender: Free Snipping Tool
Chips or wedges? Cake or ice cream? Bordeaux or Côtes du Rhône? These are just a few examples of impossible decisions I can think of (you can probably tell it’s nearly dinner time as I write this). Free Snipping Tool ( https:// freesnippingtool.com), on the other hand, presents you with an altogether less appetising choice.
It’s a screen-capture program and, yes, it’s free – at least in the sense that there’s no financial transaction involved. As with a lot of my Junk Offenders, however, there’s a hidden cost. The difference is you get to choose how to pay.
Run the installer and you’ll soon reach a screen that says you can remove adverts from the program if you agree to let it “pass traffic through your device”. As the screenshot shows, there are two options: ‘I Agree (Use my available resources)’ or ‘I prefer to see ads (Don’t use my available resources)’. What this boils down to is a choice between two evils – either let it batter you with adverts, or allow some obscure data-collecting service to hog your bandwidth and gather private data, including your PC’S IP address.
Thankfully, you should never need to make this choice, because you should never find yourself in a situation where you need to install Free Snipping Tool. Windows 10 comes with two perfectly decent snipping tools installed (click Search, type snip, then select either Snipping Tool or Snip & Sketch). And Windows 11 has a revamped Snipping Tool that Microsoft promises will make taking screenshots “super easy” (read more on its blog: www.snipca. com/39176). Now all you need to choose is what to have for dinner.