Desktop Snapshot

Desktop Snapshot is a fun and practical application you can use to share your webcam, microphone and desktop with anyone else in the world. It's useful not only for live presentations, but also for chatting with your family and friends.

Share your camera, mic and desktop over the web

The interface is user-friendly, represented by a single window split into multiple panes, where you can separately configure network, video, audio and screen settings.
After choosing a preferred camera device, you can configure its options (wherever this is applicable) and set its on-screen position (top left or right, bottom left or right, center).
It's also possible to pick a microphone device and edit its properties, as well as to adjust the screenshot capturing quality and apply effects (gray, smoothing, still).

Enable live streaming via the web browser

Worth noting is that the video and audio can be disabled if you want to share only your desktop. Since it's live streaming, the observers will be able to view your actions in real time.
The connection can be made available to other people by specifying an HTTP address and port number, which can be entered in their web browser to instantly gain access to your shared. The streaming can be tested, started and stopped with one click.

No setup required, besides Java

The program's not wrapped in a setup pack. You can save the downloaded files in a custom location on the disk or copy them to a USB flash drive, in order to directly run Desktop Snapshot on any machine. Just keep in mind that you must have Java. On the other hand, it doesn't add new entries to your system registry or create files on the HDD without asking for your permission.

Evaluation and conclusion

It worked well in our tests, without hanging, crashing or indicating errors. CPU and RAM usage was surprisingly low during live streaming. However, the refresh rate is not very good.
All in all, Desktop Snapshot is a free tool with intuitive options for hosting a live streaming session using your webcam, microphone and desktop.