GIFs have always been one of the cornerstones of the web, but they became immensely more popular with the widespread adoption of meme culture. For some, a GIF can be worth a million words.

So how can you make your own without resorting to any paid apps? All you need are these three steps.

1. Record the video. I recommend using OBS Studio. It's free and open source, but also very robust and has good performance. It's primarily meant for streaming but you can also use it to record your screen (or individual applications).

2. Convert to GIF. Take the video and convert it into a GIF using Drop to GIF. Click the Releases link and download the latest version. Just launch the app and drag any video onto it and it will spit it back out in GIF form.

3. Optimize the GIF. Take the resulting GIF and use the optimizer at EZGIF. This will help keep the file size as small as possible without sacrificing too much quality. Note that the max starting size is 20 MB.

And that's it! Now you have a finished GIF that you can share with your friends or post to Reddit.

How do you create your GIFs? Is there an easier method that we should know about? What kind of GIFs are you creating, anyway? Share with us in the comments below!