There's a new version of VLC Media Player available. The latest version is now v.0.8.6i. (That last character is a lowercase letter i, not the numeral 1.) Get it here.
This releases addresses some security flaws and fixed some other bugs, it says here and here.
After downloading the installer file and double-clicking it, VLC will detect the older version (if you have one) and offer to uninstall it. I said yes. The uninstallation program appears to run to completion, and then a short moment later, the installation of the new version automatically begins (resumes). It's momentarily disconcerting, but don't worry, everything will work out fine. At least it did for me.
(h/t: Ryan Naraine)
5 comments:
So what's the advantage of a VLC Media Player over Quicktime or Real? I already have 3 media players. Do I need more?
I like VLC better than QuickTime or Windows Media Player because it's much smaller and faster to load. (And update, when it comes to that.) It handles every audio or video format that QT or WMP handles, at least as far as I've ever experienced.
VLC is also being maintained for Windows 2000, unlike either of the above, which means it's safer -- both QT and WMP have known security holes in the last versions available for Win2K. A specially-crafted MOV or WAV file could beat the versions of QT or WMP available to me.
Also, neither of these older versions seem to play particularly well as plug-ins with Firefox. Partly, I think, this is due to web sites assuming that the latest versions will be available, especially with WMP, which means some content just won't play. And QT always had about a 10% chance of crashing Firefox, ever since I can remember.
I keep Real around only for those few sites, like BookTV.org, that will only deliver a Real stream. I dislike the amount of spying that Real does, not to mention the way it wants to be some giant all-purpose media center/jukebox thing, and I don't use it for any other purpose.
Finally, VLC is open source software, and I'd always rather use that if possible. It's not just ideology (although that's part of it) -- I think an active open source project tends to address security problems faster, so I'd probably prefer VLC to QT or WMP even if I were running XP or Vista. And, when this old Windows box finally dies, I'll be moving to Linux full-time, so I am happy to use all of the same 3rd party apps now that I'll be using then.
OK, so I run XP and use Firefox primarily and you'd advise that I download VLC, and make that my default media player?
With XP vs Win2000, you have less immediate security concerns, assuming you're staying up to date on patches for QT and Windows. Beyond that, we get a little into "if it ain't broke" territory. If you're happy with your current set-up, then "advise" would be a little strong.
If you're interested in trying VLC, I'd start by downloading and installing it, but not making it your default media player right away. If you like the way it performs, you can always change the file associations later.
Copy that.
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