VideoLAN @videolan App Stores were a mistake. Currently, we cannot update VLC on Windows Store, and we cannot update VLC on Android Play Store, without reducing security or dropping a lot of users… For now, iOS App Store still allows us to ship for iOS9, but until when?
Reminder that VLC is on F-Droid
They’ve not updated it there either though. It seems to be less of a case of can’t update Android and more of a case of won’t update Android
From their Twitter:
If you wonder why we can’t update the VLC on Android version, it’s because Google refuses to let us update:
- either we give them our private signing keys,
- or we drop support for Android TV before API-30, and all our users on TV API<30 can’t get fixes.
It’s not much, just dozens of millions of people use Android TV before Android-11…
Maybe we should tell users to buy new TVs? #electronicWaste
I can’t speak to why they’re not updating on FDroid but seeing as how it’s much more difficult to get people to use FDroid on Android TV, I don’t think it will help them with that issue anyway.
Google requiring their private signing key is insane, and goes completely against the concept of private/public keys.
Why is Google asking for this?
See also: NSA PRISM
Member when all the companies listed released a PR statement within 24 hours of each other, all very basic and denied allowing the NSA direct access to their users?
I member.
Oh yeah, I remember that…
C-I-A Confidentiality, Integrity, Accessibility. They don’t need the keys for C or A. Only one option remains. To modify the code and pass it off as code VLC wrote or signed off on.
Likely to install malware and re-sign. Brazen identity theft.
Maybe I’m wrong, they could use VLC’s private keys to gobble encrypted communications too.
I didn’t know F-droid was on Android TV, but it will be on mine pretty soon.
What exactly is the issue preventing them from updating the Android version?
Also, if that’s the case, it sounds like “App stores were a mistake” is a bit misleading, since the particular app store isnt the problem.
Basically, modern app stores have changed how they work and now require the signing keys, VLC feel this is a bad thing and refuse to update. Banks are okay with it, but VLC feel more strongly than banks.
Banks are okay with it, but VLC feel more strongly than banks.
I mean banks are known for horrible security practices all around so that makes perfect sense.
Are they?
My bank restricts the length of my password to…16 characters, I think.
Mine only uses a 4-to-6 digit pin as a password, and sms for 2fa
Darren Kitchen from Hak5 has an amusing story about a bank teller who assured him email was entirely fine to send sPII through. “No sir, you just need to send it to us, and once we have your information then it’ll be secure.” No encryption. So, yes.
Also look into the Equifax security breach. Un-patched software for months.
It makes almost no sense to have a password length limit. 1_000_000, that’s One Million, characters is equal to 1MiB. That’s twice the length of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and much less than most modern webpages. After hashing, which is how passwords should be stored, text length is irrelevant. All hashed inputs come out the exact same length. 65 characters for SHA256.
Very much known for their horrible security practices, yes. Absolutely.
Setting a max password length is sometimes done to prevent ddos attacks. Without it, attackers could just spam 1MB passwords constantly and force the login server to just spend all its cpu time hashing garbage.
That being said, a password limit of under 20 characters probably just means they are just storing passwords in plaintext.
Absolutely. They are entrenched in their regulations so much that it takes forever to change things.
Years ago, I had an account at an american big4 bank with an 8 character password and was going through and making all my passwords unique. I was changing everything to random strings of 20-30 characters (this isnt the best practice, btw, but still better than 8chars), so when I get to this bank account it capped me at 15chars. I couldnt believe the forced low entropy they gave me for something as vital as a bank account.
I asked them why, and basically they said their system would break with anything over 15chars.
How many wrong guesses were you allowed before the system would lock your account?
The equivalent of a 20-30 character random password with numbers and characters is a 7-11 word passphrase. Seeing how passphrase generators default to 4-5 words (equivalent to 11-14 characters) what you did isn’t so bad
Be your own bank, use monero.
Who do you think makes the decisions for a bank?
The person writing the Android app?
Or the person who just wants customers to be able to access the app and use the services?
Banks have laws and regulations that they must abide by to secure the access to and information of customer accounts. A security team will surely have to sign off on whatever the app developer or customer experience manager wants to implement.
Isn’t that how fdroid worked for a long time?
Edit: although it doesn’t make sense to me for play store to do the same without the source code available
Edit 2:
The reason is that they forced new apps AND apps for Android TV to use App Bundles https://developer.android.com/guide/app-bundle This type of release cannot be installed as it but can be used to generate the apk files. In order to do so, the Play Store has to sign on the fly.
Not buying it. They could let the dev sign evey combination before uploading. They’ll be caching them anyways
Traditionally Fdroid signs every app. Not with the developers key. The future are reproducible builds. https://f-droid.org/2023/01/15/towards-a-reproducible-fdroid.html this is a futuristic app store, not what google has.
Banks probably don’t use it google’s signing process.
Uploading your signing keys sounds like Windows uploading your bitlocker keys
Banks aren’t run by the people that develop the apps. They have no idea what a signing key is, they just want the app available and updated.
In addition to the private key thing, the Play Store is requiring them to drop support for APIs older than API 30 unless they provide the key.
Which in effect means VLC can no longer be updated on AndroidTVs running Android 11 or earlier.
Which is millions of customers, according to VLC
Shit, my own TV is not even on android 10
I know at least one person who’s phone isn’t even on version 10.
Poorly written post …
VLC don’t update on Fdroid, Fdroid compile all the apps on their repo (the one that comes with the app). Fdroid do some checks on the updated app before they compile it, so it’s always a little behind the main release.
Edit: it could also be that VLC haven’t yet released the updated app (and in particular its source), so Fdroid have nothing to work with.
I just feel it doesn’t make sense to moan unless you have releases you’re unable to deploy.
I agree, I mean it kind of sounds like they have something dodgy they’re about to put out but they’re playing silly buggers and trying to deflect the blame, else they would have released already and pointed to the lack of a store release as the stores’ problem.
I don’t even think it’s that. I think it’s simply a case of them becoming complacent and now they’re scrambling for excuses. VLC has stood still for a long time. Fan sub groups now recommend MPV on Windows and on Android VLC is showing its age. They speak of not wanting to abandon old users on legacy hardware, but what about old users on modern hardware who have been left feeling abandoned by how buggy the software is? When you dig into things, it doesn’t look like anyone is doing VLC full-time and alternative projects are more lucrative and that’s fine. Just say that. Even the other day, when they spoke of their new plans, once you got past the headline, all the plans were sane and made perfect sense, some more than others. I think they’re just a bit embarrassed.
Last update 2/23/23 what am I missing?
It’s the same version that’s on the Play Store.
Which is current according to their site, 3.5.4
I can’t read archive.is links
I don’t dispute that
I am not trying to argue but what is the issue? The site shows the same release as F-Droid.
Ugh, I’m biased and so I don’t really want to answer but will try. According the VLC, the reason for them becoming so terrible as a media player is because they can’t update their app. Now as you and me can both clearly see, the latest version available is the version that is in the app store and on F-Droid. If they were crying about not being able to update and had a version or two that they were unable to upload, it would make sense. But nope, they have nothing beyond what they have. Add to that, if you look at their forums, lots of people have been raising issues. One very handsome man even posted this in October
VLC was once the best in class. Not only was it a great piece of legacy software, the Android team were so passionate that they took that reputation and all the expectations that go along with it and exceeded it.
But as time has gone on, it’s just started to languish. If you attempt to rewind a few too many times, the video freezes and you get audio. You can’t play a folder on a NAS without creating a playlist. You play a folder locally without VLC losing its place. Every time the screen goes off, it needs to scan the device anew. And despite being at the forefront of Holo Design and Material Design 1, it’s yet to implement Material You.
It feels like VLC for Android has been forgotten…
To which their response was to ask for logs, despite the fact that the issues can be reproduced on every device I’ve ever tried.
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Nice reach
Fdroid is the obvious answer me thinks. Anyway love you guys/gals at videolan still haven’t come across a piece of software that destroys every other in its field in every aspect.
Have people actually checked the versions there before making the suggestion?
F-Droid: Version 3.5.4 (13050408) suggested Added on Feb 23, 2023
Google Play: Updated on Aug 27, 2023https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.videolan.vlc/
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.videolan.vlcThe problem seems to be squarely with VLC themselves.
I dont think that works for windows?
On Windows you should be downloading from the website.
Or winget if they provide it.
Doesnt winget use the same store?
Or use scoop or something similar. Or better yet don’t use Windows
Thats not secure. Isn’t the pount of the Windows Store that packages are signed by developers and verified when downloaded?
No, the point of the windows store is that Microsoft gets more control over your machine.
Code downloaded from websites can still be (and is) signed; when it’s not you get that box where you have to click “Run Anyway”
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You can pay a one time fee if $25 to get Microsoft to sign your app on the Microsoft store, or you can pay $400+ per year to buy your own certificate. So Microsoft Store is sadly the cheap way to release apps on Windows. (Without users getting scary warnings from Windows and AV about installing unsigned aoftware)
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The certs are sold by certificate authority companies, and Microsoft doesn’t get a share of that, though I’m not sure.
Yeah, software being signed says nothing about it not being malicious or insecure, but it does prove the author is what it says, and if it is malicious then the responsible party is clearly visible.
For non-commercial hobby/open-source software the certificate price is prohibitive, so the only 2 options are Microsoft Store or accepting that users will see the scary warnings, and of course complain to the developer about it.
The assumption is that legitimate companies who sell software will sign it and that signature proves it came from that company who you trust because of their publicly known legitimacy. It’s a bit of circular reasoning. But it does round back towards that legitimacy - if it is found that they violate your trust, they lose public trust and thus lose sales.
Luckily new OSes (cough NOT WINDOWS) are able to sandbox applications and prevent them from accessing resources without declaring the need to access it.
And as for the signing certificate, I think the MS Store will allow any signed app. They just offer the cheaper signing service.
You don’t have to use the visual studio to package in MSIX
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Come on man, every single software developer in existence uses package managers. It should not be complicated to understand the point of the store.
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Pretty sure they’re signed by Microsoft instead? At least that’s what other app stores do.
It’s all a game of shifting the point of trust around. Personally, I’d trust most small time developers more than the likes of Microsoft and Google, however I’d trust Fdroid more than unknown developers (but still go direct to the developers I do trust).
The good ones are signed by the devs, otherwise there’s a risk of malicious modifications at upload or on the publishing infrastructure. This is how Maven works. All packages MUST be signed with PGP by the devs.
Apt isn’t signed by the devs but its signed by the package maintainers, whose job it is to verify the packages that they prepare (devs can’t upload software in Debian)
You can try chocolatey store then. Community maintained.
And also no.security. what’s the point?
How about winget or the other commandline package managers? winget does have VLC according to winget-pkgs. This is the kind of “stores” we need, ones that emulate Linux repositories instead of locked down smartphone garbage.
Is singer secure tho? Iirc chocolaty isnt
Asking if something is secure on an insecure OS. Seriously, both the program and the repositories are on github:
https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli
https://github.com/microsoft/winget-pkgs
So you be the judge.
Unfortunately even FlatPak is insecure, so OS doesn’t really matter
Maybe don’t check all the permission boxes in flatseal and you might find it’s more secure than you think.
It’s all about default permissions
Winrar?
7zip.
PeaZip is something you should check out too
What does 7zip do better?
Not show annoying popups about licenses?
7z is better than rar and its algorithm is fully open source
Oh shit I did not know that. Switching now, thanks
Encryption?
I tried it and went back so winrar.
Dear VLC, in your download section there is the F-Droid app store option which I consider a good thing. p.s. Why are you still posting on Twitter ??? On your website I see two buttons Facebook and Twitter. Time for a change ?
By the way, archive.is and archive.ph are Tor unfriendly. Another link : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39798565
By the way, archive.is and archive.ph are Tor unfriendly.
Not just Tor, they poison DNS queries from Cloudfare and Quad9, basically any DNS that doesn’t give them sufficient location information about the end user.
That’s probably why it wasn’t working
The guy upset about his 14 year old iPad not still receiving support is hilarious!
Ok yeah it’s kind of funny but if you think about it for a second that ipad is perfectly functional. If apple doesn’t want to support it because it doesn’t make them money, then why can’t the community? Why does apple get to decide what is e-trash and what isn’t?
The laptop I bought second hand in 2014 is still very much functionnal, and in fact it still runs. I’ll concede that it doesn’t run well, as it was already unpowered back then, but it runs some flavors of Linux oriented towards low-power devices, because people made them to do specifically this. If I had bought a second had ipad instead, it would be in a landfill by now. It didn’t even take any special actions on toshiba’s part to make it behave like this, they just made a laptop that was up to the standards of every other laptop at the time. What I’m getting at is that this isn’t a new idea, we know how to take care of our devices for longer already, were it not for the apples and googles telling us what we can’t and can do on the device we own.
I thought MissTake’s response was really good and covers pretty much everything
“Thanks to Apple”?
The original iPad was a 32 bit A8 single core CPU that topped out as 1Ghz and with 256MB Ram and used the ARMv7 instruction set.
How do you expect a modern day OS with requirements to deal with real world sensors, and user requirements that didn’t exist back then, to run against that?
The latest iPads have 2GB Ram, are 64 bit, run multiple cores and have embedded motion coprocessors and neural capabilities running a much later instruction set.
Let’s be reasonable here - that device is now about to be 14 years old.
And, if “the hardware works beautifully” how is it “pretty much a brick”?
iPads are not the same as laptops or desktops. Sure, you can still run some Linux distros on older 32 bit hardware, but everyone who does knows of the limitations of doing so and realize that they lack the horsepower of modern day computers and use them accordingly.
Disagree. They should be forced to open it up for the community to maintain it when they end support.
My thoughts exactly. It would be unreasonable to expect full support 14 years after it came out, and it would be unreasonable to expect modern apps to work flawlessly. But it’s not unreasonable to say that all the specs mentionned by the commenter can just be considered to all be 0 if the device cant run anything - not because it is physically incapable of it, but because we can’t even try.
From my understanding of the quoted text, that’s what the person is suggesting. That at a certain point, things shouldn’t any longer just work and users should be made to take responsibility.
Its hilarious that apple is creating a bunch of ewaste for no good reaaon?
My mom’s macbook is 14 years old and perfectly functional. So why doesnt it work (well) anymore?
Apple doesnt provide updated root certificates anymore, so all https sitesare borked.
VLC is still on Twitter? I thought they would be quick to migrate to Mastodon, slightly disappointed.
And thanks OP for linking outside of Twitter.
Probably on both?
Mastodon and other federated platforms are still confusing to normies and less ideologically-minded users. Aside from that, unless VLC starts hosting their own instance, it is hard to say if the particular one they decide to use will stick around. They can relocate by taking some extra steps of course. But they would likely care to put that effort into making VLC Player better instead of into social media. For now at least. X has been more or less the same for a long time (even with the past couple of years) for what they use it for. I am sure they would like to be on an open platform over propriety if that were the only difference. And nothing is stopping them from using both at the same time in order to reach as many people as possible.
and yet the fdroid version was updated last month!
I just checked it’s 23 February 2023. Last year…
Oh Jesus
Or just using their official release APK over obtainium
TIL that my country has bended over the copyright trolls and blocked Archive.is, need a VPN to view…
I wish I was lost in dessert, but it’s better for my wasteline that I’m not.
And good on VLC for standing up against this. This type of thing should absolutely be opt-in by the developer.
So, uh, why not? The link doesn’t answer that.
Google is forcing apps to have Google services handle private keys. VLC doesn’t think that’s a good policy for security (it’s not), so they’re refusing to adopt it. Whenever you sign in on an app with your fingerprint, the encryption/authentication is being handled by a different program and stored alongside all your other keys. This creates a single point of failure for all sign-ons on your phone.
This creates a single backdoor for all sign-ons on your phone.
Thanks! 🙏
My guess is that their update won’t be approved unless they drop support for old OS versions
Which is a problem given it’s a media player, and AndroidTVs still on Android 11 or earlier would be denied updates.
Is it a problem though? Old versions of VLC still work fine; I have it on my iPad 2 but haven’t updated it in over 5 years.
Old hardware doesn’t have to worry about security updates because it’s already insecure. So unless VLC stops working, I don’t need updates. And it’s not like my iPad is capable of playing HEVC 4k HDR video anyway, so new codec support isn’t a problem.
One of the quickest ways to pivot into a corporate intranet is via an old insecure networked printer that Shannon from HR brought in.
Sure, maybe you don’t have anything worth stealing or leaking, but I bet getting hit with ransomware that encrypts every drive on the network and charges you $2,000 per drive to decrypt will put a damper on your day, month, or year.
Hope you’re one of the 0.1% of people that actually keep regular backups.
My point though is that if you’re running the old device without appropriate lockdowns, it’s already leaking like a sieve. It’s been at least five years since the corporate perimeter has been considered more than a minor line of defense, specifically because there are so many pieces of equipment long out of security patch support (if they ever had it) that can’t be trusted.
And ransomware actors don’t bother with the printer; they get in via phishing emails and misconfigured routers and remote access tools — because it’s too much work to target the printer when there are juicier targets.
Although there’s been a recent push towards credential management compromise, and if you’ve got an iPad 2 connected to an Apple ID that also happens to include an iCloud keychain with your Exchange server credentials on it….
My thinking was more along the lines of old vulnerabilities in VLC (specifically codecs/implementation) exploiting a set of the most commonly sold TVs, and spreading via torrents. If your malware group can target 6 models of the best selling 5 year old TVs and spread via torrents and then infecting video files, which spread over Windows networks and keep infecting video files, it could be a good few million device strong botnet.
Seems more like something an APT actor would focus on because the effort:reward ratio isn’t there for most groups, and it would take a lot more effort than the MicroTik botnet or other compromised router nets.
I’m hesitant to run any outdated network-connected devices on my (read: the one my personal devices use) network. The only older model device we have running is a brother printer but it still receives firmware updates, and it’s segmented so printing is never done directly from anyone’s device, it’s hooked up to an old laptop running a simple custom web server that accepts files and puts them in the printer queue, and tunneling and DNS are configured on the router, if someone needs to print, they go to [thenameoftheprinter].com in their browser and upload the file(s) and it prints. Devices without access to the guest network can print with Bluetooth, it just requires opening the laptop and pairing and manually printing.
But that was born out of issues of compatibility with the printer running on the guest/kids network, and not wanting to plug it directly into the router or use the Brother apps more than “This printer is older, must not have direct network access.”
Some still sold and serviced are Android 8 i think?
I don’t think app stores are the problem. I think big company app stores are the problem, such as the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. I think something like F-Droid where you can add your own app sources or Droid-ify that has a ton of sources by default you just need to enable is the way to go.
The issue there is similar though - who controls Fdroid? They have the final say. Besides, 99% of users stick with the defaults.
Probably beating a dead horse, so… sorry, but look into the Gab fiasco or FreeTusky.
F-Droid does ‘censor’ or moderate their app repository. However, they do not control which sources or repos you may install from.
If there’s an app you want that f-droid doesn’t stock, see if the app has a private repo, like Bitwarden, or is in another repo, like IzzyOnDroid.
Fdroid has no say in what repos are added by the users.
That’s right. Fdroid the app is just a program that accesses repositories. It’s not even the only one, Aurora has a similar version of their own called Aurora Droid.
Fdroid the repo is a repository of FOSS apps maintained by the Fdroid team with apps they’ve reviewed and compiled themselves, to provide an element of trust that you might not get from every random developer.
There’s no fool proof way of handling app trust other than developing your own understanding of the code. Otherwise you have to trust someone. Fdroid seem pretty trustworthy, more than the big corporations, and more than many unknown small time developers - however you can get app updates quicker direct from the developer, through the Fdroid app, if you’re willing to trust them.
Theoretically yes, but in practice for the vast majority of users it makes no difference. Very few people are going to go through the trouble of vetting another source, adding it, etc. That’s what the tyranny of the default is all about.
Its open source.
There’s plenty of examples of FOSS devs selling out to corps who dramatically change the apps they produced. Not saying that would happen to Fdroid, but ultimately, unless you yourself control the software and its updates, you can never be 100% sure.
I like the defaults personally.
Do you also like being tracked and having your private data sold without your knowledge?
I’m sorry what? F-droid takes security, privacy and freedom very seriously. You can read more about it here:
https://f-droid.org/en/2024/03/08/privacy-design-of-fdroid.org-webservers.html
You said you like the defaults… Fdroid is not the default.
Oh I misunderstood, I though you were about to argue that the play store us more secure or something
Hell naw, bruh. Google can go fuck itself with a spiked club.
Can someone break down the thinking behind this?
It’s explained here: https://social.treehouse.systems/@Aissen/112139649840297169
“Ios still allows us to deliver to ios 9”
It’s a poorly written post. On whatever site this is. Looks like crap.
With Play App Signing, Google manages and protects your app’s signing key for you and uses it to sign optimized, distribution APKs that are generated from your app bundles
You can use google’s play app signing. It’s not mandatory.
That is not better, it still means that the app is signed with a non private key, which goes against the very concept of the private/public key concept
Thats what they complain about. They can use it. They dont have to. Yes its bad but they mix up a lot in one post.
Why do Google need the private key? I can only see it being used to modify apps without notice.
Iirc, they build the app and publish it for you. “For convenience and security”
Wow, that is terrible.
Yyes.
With Play App Signing, Google manages and protects your app’s signing key for you and uses it to sign optimized, distribution APKs that are generated from your app bundles. Play App Signing stores your app signing key on Google’s secure infrastructure and offers upgrade options to increase security.
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/9842756?hl=en
Yes, but only because it’s Google. Fdroid do exactly the same thing in their repo.
The idea behind it is sound, because otherwise you’re putting all your trust in the app developer. By having the store do some basic checks and compile the app the idea is they can guarantee no third party/bad actor has inserted malicious code.
However, this being Google, they are the bad actor.
No, that is wrong, the app developer signs the app with their private key, sends it to Google, google scans ans verifies the app, and add their signature with their own private key.
The app can thus be verified to have been built by a specific developer and verified by Google before publishing, without breaking trust
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I’ve scrolled through the F-Droid repositories in Droidify app and see that VLC does not have their own F-Droid repository ? They could create one, and set up mirrors for it, think of a way to cover the hosting costs, why not ? Making yourself depend on Apple and Google and saying that app stores were a mistake feels wrong.
Better to use the official fdroid repo
Generally with small time apps, sure, but VLC are trustworthy enough to get it straight from the source. However, it’s not like VLC is an app that you need to keep up to date as soon as possible.
Unlike certain services, the main fdroid repo is pretty reliable
It doesn’t because you should get the app from F-droid main.
Several projects have their own F-Droid repository. A few years ago VLC was not updated for some time for some reason. A project like NewPipe has their own F-Droid repository making it possible to let users download the latest version, which can be useful when there is issues with the main F-Droid repository.
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MPV can also be configured to look way better than VLC. Especially if you use HDR.
Last time I tried it, the prebuilts packages didn’t work, and the version I built from source couldn’t recognize any graphics or video outputs to use 😞
Off topic
Reading this I remembered that stupid apple is now forced to let us sideload on iphones. I just kicked off the ios update to enable it.
