Indian government lifts download ban from VLC Media Player – Smartprix

Recently, VLC media player has been banned in India for a considerable period by the Ministry of Electronics and IT. In a recent development, the ban on VLC media player has been lifted up. The ban on the platform was imposed in February 2022, but still, information regarding the same has yet to be shared by the goverment or the VideoLAN Project. The issue was further publicized by the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) of India which has possibly helped VLC legally to fight against the ban

As claimed by VLC, the company almost managed to get 25 million downloads per year from India before getting banned. Until now, the government has not made any official statement regarding the upliftment of the ban. Nonetheless, at the time of testing, the website is now showing in Google searches, and the app can also be downloaded from there.

How did the VLC Player download ban get lifted?

According to multiple reports, VLC Media Player sent a legal notice to the Indian government in the month of October, citing reasons behind the ban of the website in India. In addition, the company also asked permission for a virtual hearing of their case so that the issue could be resolved quickly.

In order to take a firm step, the company also claimed to threaten the government, it also says that if the government fails to provide proper justification, then the brand will be entitled to kickstart legal proceedings against the government for failing to protect the rights as guaranteed by the Constitution of India under the International laws.

Well, the recent development in the same scenario suggests that VLC has been proven not guilty in the case that’s why the services of the website have been restored in India. In the past few months, whenever anyone tried to open the VLC media player, then they got a 404 error message.

Reasons behind VLC Media Player ban

Reports say that VLC Media Player was banned in India because of some suspicious behaviour in the app. Cybersecurity experts said that a Chinese hacking organization, Cicada used VLC Media Player to share malware. VLC Media Player was the first application that got banned in the country. In the past, the Indian government has also banned applications like BGMI and Free Fire due to security concerns.

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