These companies that mislead our users

Posted by on July 7, 2011

Some thoughts about the people who use the name of VLC media player to spread adware/spyware while infringing the VideoLAN‘s intellectual property and brand…

At VideoLAN we’re really fed up with all those websites/companies that are tricking our users to download malware and violate our IP by distributing misleading versions of VLC without conforming to the GPL license.

What bothers us the most is that many of them are bundling VLC with various crapware to monetize it in ways that mislead our users by thinking they’re downloading an original version. This is not acceptable. The result is a poor product that doesn’t work as intended, that can’t be uninstalled and that clearly abuses its users and their privacy. Not to mention that it also discredits our work as volunteers and that it’s time-consuming, time that is not invested in the development.

Of course this situation is not specific to VLC, other open source products are affected by this scourge and there’s not much we can do about it. They have the money to buy adwords, we don’t. Sadly, as a non-profit organization we don’t have the money to sue them.

We’re constantly trying to enforce our IP to protect our users, in the meantime tell people around you that VLC media player is and will always be free of any charge and for your own security always download it from the official website www.videolan.org.

FYI these are the two biggest companies who use VLC to distribute their crap:
- pinballcorp.com
- eorezo.com / tuto4pc.com

But there are many more:

  • http://vlc.us.com
  • http://www.eorezo.com/cgi-bin/download/direct/index?c_software=vlc
  • http://www.vlcdownload.org
  • http://www.softwaredownload.cc/?gclid=CMyGhoHrwJ8CFcpb4wodNHnJzg
  • http://www.iogiciel.com/l/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=53&Itemid=61
  • http://vlcplayer.2010-fr.com
  • http://www.mediaplayers-gratuits.com
  • http://www.downloadvlcplayer.net
  • http://vlc-media-player-blog.com
  • http://www.softesdown.com/fr/vlcmediaplayer/
  • http://www.getyoursoft.com/download/name/vlc-media-player/id_soft/18
  • http://supertelech.info
  • http://www.descargarvclmediaplayergratis.com
  • http://www.oficial-es.org/es
  • http://todotusoft.com/Video/Reproductor-Multimedia/1158/VLC-Media-Player.html
  • http://galleries.secure-softwaremanager.com/804e9dc7b4/854190c2bc1e
  • http://www.clickdownloadsoftware.com/player/
  • http://www.freefilesoft.net/VLCPlayer/
  • http://www.vlc.de
  • http://videolan.sk

 

Some screenshots of ads you’ll find when searching for VLC on Bing and Google:

Update #1: old links removed, new added
Update #2: added some screenshots of typical ads 
English,

87 Comments.

  2. Mark Johnston July 7, 2011 at 14:18

    Have you tried contacting Google and get them to punish these companies for abusing adwords et al?

  3. Carl Lange July 7, 2011 at 14:28

    I suppose, because of the OSS nature of VLC (the fact that it would not be difficult to remove this), that there’s no way to securely do a phone home to be sure of the software on first run? Perhaps in the update check?

  4. etix July 7, 2011 at 14:32

    @Mark: We’ve already contacted Google and SafeBrowsing both told us that they don’t care.

    @Carl: Yes, the OSS nature of VLC prevents us from doing that but anyway it would be easy to disable it in the source code. It’s pretty much like DRM, only the “legit” version would be impacted.

    • ­Robert Carnegie July 12, 2011 at 16:34

      I suspect that your “colleagues” releasing these other versions of VLC aren’t very interested in changing the source code and program behaviour. However, releasing a phone-home version of source code arguably is against OSS spirit. The authentic program checks for updates from the authentic place, however.

      If I released my own version of a media player with your source code, that would not be immediately wrong, yes? But if I call my version”VLC” too, that may be wrong.

      How about… if your authentic version is released with copyrighted material that is used with permission in this way. You could be sponsored by… let me consider… a major retailer of do-it-yourself home improvement tools and equipment. (Is that what Swedish House Mafia do?) And people will look for your product combined with the sponsor’s name. Fakers won’t want to fake that part, it will get them into trouble with somebody big. The problem then is to find somebody big who will do you this favour whose benefit to you is uncertain.

      “POM WONDERFUL PRESENTS THE GREATEST FILM EVER SOLD” is an interesting documentary film that attempts to examine film and television paid product placement whilst being financed by product placement. Maybe this fruit juice company would also let its name be associated with your efforts so that VLC 1.2 can be launched as “Free Pom Viewer EXE”, although I have not yet definitely identified a good reason for you to do that except that I think it would be quite funny. I don’t know if you would agree. It also perhaps would make casual downloaders be particularly careful that they got the right version. Perhaps you would have to make it “Pom Wonderful” in full, but that could still work.

      By the way, did you get my VLC 1.1.10 crash reports? ;-)