But who is to guard the guards themselves? - Juvenal
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VLC version drops support for spyware
OPEN SOURCE media player Videolan has been forced to drop Shoutcast support in its latest version.
The software, which is known for its versatility, has been updated to support GPU decoding of high definition video formats including Mpeg-2, VC-1 and H.264 on Windows Vista, Windows 7 and GNU/Linux. However, the team is "quite sad" at being able to recommend only Nvidia's GPUs, claiming that ATI needs to fix its Windows drivers and that Intel has yet to give them access to its hardware.
As always, VLC won't be found wanting for codec support. Even decoding of Google's vaunted VP8 is supported, so its no surprise that VLC 1.1.0 supports encoding and decoding of the WebM format. Webm is a combination of VP8 video and Vorbis audio, and Google is pushing for its inclusion in the HTML5 standard.
Along with providing support for a plethora of audio and video codecs, VLC also has improved support for container formats such as MKV. The VLC team is claiming an astonishing "up to 40 per cent" speed-up in high definition resolutions, thanks in part to low-level optimisations.
VLC has also targeted developers with the removal of "tens of thousands of lines" of code, code refactoring, simplified libraries, better C integration and new C++ bindings.
However controversy has arisen, as the team felt it necessary to explain why the latest release of VLC does not include support for Shoutcast. Apparently, Shoutcast support was "one of the best features of the software", according to user feedback. Therefore it's not surprising that it took something major to have it pulled.
According to the VLC team, developers had been receiving injunctions from AOL asking it to comply with a licence that VLC claims is "not compatible with free software" or remove Shoutcast in VLC. To justify why it chose the latter option, VLC has come out fighting.
Stating why AOL's license cannot be adhered to if VLC is to remain open source, the VLC team claims that "the license (sic) forces us to integrate the spyware and adware based Shoutcast Radio Toolbar inside your browser." However AOL's loss is the open source project Icecast's gain. VLC points out that its "extension framework" makes it possible to integrate Icecast within VLC.
It's hardly surprising that AOL, a company that seemingly exists merely to be the butt of technology jokes, expects a high profile open source project such as VLC to sully itself by being associated with the two-bit dial-up Internet outfit. Thankfully, its stupidity has paved the way for an open source project to take its place. µ
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Fact: It's the listeners who are being hurt. WE are the ones who either have to be PHORM'd by AOL's adware toolbars or go elsewhere.
It's the OPERATORS who use the shoutcast network who need to understand why AOL's practices are hurting US, and therefore THEM. They need to switch to Icecast to free themselves as well as take advantage of VLC's immense user base.
Whatever AOL's paying you guys, you gotta realize what you're missing - when you take out the middleman there's more advertising profit going directly to YOU.
I had a lot of pride in the founders of nullsoft. Those guys knew what they were doing. They created some nice free stuff. I was dismayed when they sold it off the AOL. I was also elated when some of them bailed on AOL a couple years later.
AOL doesn't get it.
And for you naive people out there. THERE IS NO VALUE TO A TOOLBAR BUT TO TRACK YOU. Remove those toolbars from your browsers as they are pointless except to allow data miners and advertisers to track what you are doing.
As a games dev, AMEN TO THAT!
F**king things follow the GLSL spec as loosely as possible and barely anything works fully which means I have to constantly find slower workarounds.
Over the years I have only found one media file vlc can't play, that being real player codec. I would have to say of all the great free apps that exist today for any OS VLC id my first pic for number 1 of all time. I have used it for years and there are windows os x and Linux versions. It can work as tv tuner software. dvd Decoder, and other things I am not familiar with.I can't even imagine not having VLC, especially in mac where I am not crazy about the default players that can't play windows media files.THANKS VLC