Users must download the app from third-party sites

Aug 18, 2022 14:14 GMT  ·  By

VLC is currently one of the most popular media players in the entire world, as it records impressive download figures on both the desktop and mobile.

But according to VideoLAN, the parent company that makes VLC happen, the official site of the application is no longer available in India for a reason that is yet to be determined.

In a mailed statement for TechCrunch, VideoLan president and lead developer Jean-Baptiste Kempf says that most major ISPs in the country have already banned the VLC site, therefore causing an important drop in the number of users accessing the page.

VideoLAN says the ban generated a drop of no less than 20 percent in the number of visitors of the official VLC site.

App still up and running

While Indian ISPs and local organizations have remained tight-lipped on what happened, Kempf says there’s a chance that VLC has been blocked following reports of exploits involving the media player. Symantec discovered earlier this year that the Chinese group Cicada has launched a series of cyberattacks aimed at users in several countries, in an attempt to obtain access to their computers.

However, Kempf says that India blocking the VLC website actually does more harm than good, because users who want to download the application could end up visiting shady websites where they could eventually get a crafted version of the media player.

If the official VLC site isn’t available in your region, you can download the latest version of the media player from Softpedia – all installers have been scanned for viruses and tested by our Windows software team.

In the meantime, however, users who are already running VLC in India can continue using the app. Updates are received normally, as the download servers don’t seem to be blocked, so the ban only targets the official website of the media player.