VLC Media Player Finally Available on Chrome OS

The much loved VLC media player is already available on every significant desktop operating system, and even a few obscure ones, with one major exception: Chrome OS. But that's about to change.

The nonprofit VideoLAN organization on Friday announced that the free, open source, cross-platform VLC multimedia player is finally available on Google's Chrome OS. Like the desktop version of VLC, the new Chrome OS iteration can play most video files, as well as network streams and DVD ISOs. It's also a full audio player capable of playing even "weird audio formats" like FLAC.

"VLC is intended for everyone, is totally free, has no ads, no in-app-purchases, no spying and is developed by passionate volunteers," VideoLAN President Jean-Baptiste Kempf wrote in a blog post. "All the source code is available for free."

Other features include a media library for audio and video files, support for cover art and subtitles, and a widget for audio control. The first time you use it, you'll need to select a folder where all your media is located; this is where the media database will index from.

VideoLAN has tested the current version on a Chromebook Pixel and HP Chromebook 14.

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"It is possible that there are issues with other machines, and we ADVISE to use the latest Chrome 48 or the current beta version, to test VLC," Kempf wrote. "Be careful, it's just the first release, but for now, Enjoy!"

To download VLC for ChromeOS, click here. Meanwhile, VLC is also available on Windows, Windows, OS X, Linux, BSD, Solaris, OS/2, Haiku/BeOS, ReactOS.