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:

After 9 months of hard work, VideoLAN Movie Creator (aka VLMC) will be unveiled to the community during the VideoLAN Dev’days 2009 in Paris!

VLMC is a free, cross-platform, non-linear video editing software based on the famous VLC Media Player.

Made by a team of 6 students, the project started in March 2009 as an end of studies project and is now (almost) ready for its first public alpha release. Expected for early 2010, it will provide a new alternative for editing videos on Linux, Windows and even Mac.

Meet us and discover the new power of the cone on the 18th, 19th and 20th december 2009 in Paris.

VLC Media Player

After more than a year of work, the VideoLAN community is proud to announce that VLC 1.0.0 is finally out !

This release has been delayed many times since February (the original release date chosen during the VideoLAN dev’days 2008) but reached its goal today. More stable, tons of new features, this release is definitely the best and most advanced release of VLC.

Take a look at the impressive changelog, and give it a try !

A list of the most *bling* *bling* enhancements since 0.9.9:

• Increased stability
• Reduced memory usage
• Live recording
• Instant pausing and Frame-by-Frame support
• New HD codecs (AES3, Dolby Digital Plus, TrueHD, Blu-Ray Linear PCM, Real Video 3.0 and 4.0, …)
• New formats (Raw Dirac, M2TS, …) and majors improvements in many formats…
• New Dirac encoder and MP3 fixed-point encoder
• Video scaling in full-screen
• RTSP Trickplay support
• Zipped file playback
• Customizable toolbars
• Easier encoding GUI in Qt interface
• Better integration in GTK environments
• MTP devices on Linux
• Air Tunes streaming
• And much more…

Download it now !