VLC is probably the most important media player out there today. This program is characterized, especially, for being open source and for including free codecs as standard, thanks to which we can reproduce any audio or video format without configuring or installing anything else. One of the “problems” that we can find in this player is that its interface, and its characteristics, are already somewhat obsolete. However, VideoLAN has decided to renew everything for the next version of this program. And, as we have already seen, VLC 4.0 will radically break with the past and change the way you watch videos forever.
The new VLC 4.0 is still in alpha phase . This means that the program is still in development and may have quite serious malfunctions and performance. However, this new version is already fully functional, and allows us to get an idea of what is to come.
VLC 4.0 main features
The biggest change from VLC 4.0: the interface
Without a doubt, the biggest change that we are going to find in this new version of the player is the interface change. Since we opened the program for the first time we can see the radical change in the appearance of the program.
This new interface stands out for being infinitely more useful. From it we can see all the content that we have added to the program (as if it were a multimedia center) and add the folders on our PC where we have saved our videos, photos or music.
The playlist, finally, has been completely remodeled to make it much more useful, and above all, we can find a great change in the reproduction of the videos as such. The playback window now occupies the entire player window, the control panel and the queue have transparency and we can change the subtitles and the audio language much better.
Cloud services (and payment services)
The new VLC is also going to bet on streaming. Right now, the media player is capable of smoothly playing videos. However, it is also beginning to be heard that VideoLAN is working on adding support for other services. These are just rumors (for now), but it all fits into the direction the player is taking.
In addition, there have also been indications, on the part of VLC, of wanting to find a way to monetize the program. Of course, this player is always going to be free and open source, but you may be looking to offer a number of streaming services just like Plex does. And these services are the ones that will be paid.
Greater security
The more services are offered, the greater the security risks. Therefore, VideoLAN has implemented a new sandbox system in your browser that prevents any malicious file from taking control of your computer. Everything that runs within VLC will be isolated, and will not be able to exit the player to attack, for example, other system services. Thus, we will avoid that by downloading and executing a potentially dangerous file we can endanger the integrity of our Windows.
VLC from the browser!
Finally, the company is working on another very interesting novelty that will change the way you watch videos on any device: an online version of VLC . In addition to having Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS applications, VLC will have a web version that we can load from the browser. Thus, we can run an instance of VLC on any PC or device and load videos in the same way as we would in the computer program.
This feature has not yet been made official, but it will be a reality very soon.
Try VLC 4.0 right now
As we have said, the new VLC 4.0 is still in the development phase. This version can be buggy, crashes very often, and has serious performance issues when using VLC. Therefore, for now, we only recommend using it to test changes, but not on a day-to-day basis.
The Nightly version of VLC 4.0 can now be downloaded for free to try it from this link to its website . We will find it available for Windows (in installable and portable version), for Linux and for macOS. We recommend using the portable version of Windows, as it is the fastest to install, and the easiest to delete.
