The VLC Media Player was included in the Government of India’s round of blocking apps throughout the nation. For more than six months, the media player was blocked in India. The country’s government was sued by VideoLAN, the company that owns VLC Media Player, and ultimately, after a protracted legal battle, the country’s official ban on the application has been lifted. Additionally, according to reports, MeitY (Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology) and the DoT (Department of Telecommunication) has received legal notification from VideoLAN.

It has been previously reported that VideoLAN filed a right-to-information (RTI) application with the DoT of India in order to gain more information about why the application was banned in the country. Now, Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) has shared a new tweet on Twitter which confirms that the ban on VLC media player has been lifted up officially. According to reports, MeitY was given the RTI but claimed to be unable to provide any information regarding the restriction on the VideoLAN website. In a legal letter sent to the DoT and MeitY, the creator of the open-source media player claimed that it had not been informed of the restriction in advance.

Additionally, even after the ban, users could still download the application from the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. So it might be a ban that only applies to the VideoLAN website? About that, we’re unsure. After six months of requests, the owner then sent MeitY a legal notification alleging that no information had been provided regarding the ban on the media player.

Additionally, VideoLAN claimed that the site’s blocking violated both Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and international commitments related to freedom of speech. The organisation also declared that it will seek legal redress for the violation of its rights. Anyway, the player is currently fully accessible in the country and the government is yet to release an official statement regarding it.

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Back in August, Indian authorities banned the official VLC media player website “www.videolan.org” across the country without an explanation for the ban. Now, VideoLAN, the publisher of the VLC media player, has issued a legal notice to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeiTY) in India.

After the ban, MeiTY received a Right to Information (RTI) request from VideoLAN with assistance from the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF). MeiTY answered by stating that they do not have any information regarding the ban. According to IFF, VideoLAN was not provided a warning or an opportunity to be heard. After that, VideoLAN has now sent these two government organizations a legal notice.

Although the government hasn’t provided any information or justification for why the VLC website was blocked in the nation, it has been reported that the government forbade downloading VLC from the program’s official website because some cybersecurity experts asserted that a hacker group called Cicada, based in China, used VLC to distribute malware. According to reports, the Chinese government supported the strike. Over the years, the hacker group has accumulated notoriety for attacking NGOs.

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VideoLan Client or VLC for short is one of the most used software for playing videos on PC and other devices like Android and iOS. Its specialty is the wide range of supported codecs and the highly versatile interface.

Now, according to a recent report, the VideoLAN Project’s VLC media player has allegedly been banned in India. The ban was reportedly issued earlier this year (around 13th February) in a silent manner, and neither VideoLAN nor the Indian authorities provided any information on the matter.

In accordance with the ban, ISPs have blocked the official VLC media player website “www.videolan.org” across the country. It’s worth noting that users can still get the media player from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, indicating that the ban hasn’t been fully implemented.

According to some reports, VLC Media Player has been banned in the country because the platform was used for cyber attacks by the alleged China-backed hacking group Cicada. Security experts discovered Cicada was using VLC Media Player to deploy a malicious malware loader as part of a long-running cyber attack campaign just a few months ago.

The situation is quite peculiar as the VideoLan Project team is based in Paris and has no apparent connections to China. Currently, there is no official word from the government of India or the VideoLan Project team regarding the alleged cyber attack. As for users, if you already have a VLC media player installed on your PC, it will continue to work as usual. For people looking to download the app, you can still access the mirror sites that are still available to access in India.

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If you remember, VideoLAN blacklisted Huawei devices from downloading VLC player from the Play Store due to aggressive background task management methods. It resulted in various bugs and caused instability, finally resulting in random crashes generating negative reviews on the Play Store.

After Huawei’s decision to kill the aggressive optimizing app, VLC unbanned Huawei devices on the Play Store. Including various optimizations, Huawei devices are still lingering by some minor issues while using the VLC media player app. We hope with the ban lift these minor issues will also fade away on Huawei devices.

VLC initially blocked Huawei P10, P8, P20, P20 Pro, and few other devices. The users of new P30 series – P30 and P30 Pro can download the VLC from the Play Store without any problem. From this, it appears the ban from the Huawei devices has been lifted.

Now it is officially verified, according to a tweet from VideoLAN the block has been lifted since the Huawei fixed their firmware a long time ago. Huawei made background app shutdown feature optional in an update.

• Read More: VLC media player no longer available for Huawei devices to avoid negative reviews

It’s a sign of relief for Huawei device owner, who were missing the VLC player due to its advanced features.

source, via

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