VLC acknowledged the matter and is now working with the government and the country’s ISPs
VLC got banned in India and the public has only now noticed. All download links and redirects to its website have been removed and the reasons behind the ban are not yet clear. The Indian Government had made no comments about it either. VLC has already acknowledged the issue and has been discussing it with several ISPs in India.
Because the reasons are not clear, we can only speculate. An article from India Today said that the ban was due to the video player’s history as being the bridge used by the China-backed hacker group Cicada for initiating cyber attacks. This was discovered only a few months ago.
While the PC version of VLC is banned, mobile users including those using Android and iOS, are safe. They can install the player as normal on their phones with no risks involved. While the original website has been blocked, PC users can make amends by downloading through official mirror sites. Users can also access the official website through the use of a VPN.
According to VLC, its video player was banned since Feb 13, 2022. The ban only took traction recently as the company reached out to its users via social media to help them get unbanned. Due to this, the public got aware and also confused about how a player with several million users… just vanished away.
Source: India Today, 91mobiles
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