Technology VLC is Wrongly Blamed for Microsoft Defender's Clumsiness

[lokamoka820]

Content source

https://itsfoss.com/news/vlc-microsoft-defenders-drama/

It all started with a tweet by video game designer Jonathan Blow. Blow is the developer behind games like Braid and The Witness.

He mentioned that he had stopped using VLC on Windows because it took about 33 seconds to start playing a simple MP3, and he had switched to Microsoft Media Player instead.



And he also shamed open source software, framing it as a sign that large part of open-source software is in bad shape.

A large sector of open source software is in a truly embarrassing place now...

This quickly turned into a heated discussion, with people joining from both sides.

VLC's official Twitter account clarified that this delay was not a core VLC regression but a side effect of a Windows 11 / Microsoft Defender update that quarantined VLC’s plugin cache. Their suggested solution is reinstalling VLC or regenerating that cache.

Jonathan argued that it is the developer's responsibility to fix. He cited his own experience of fixing an issue caused by AMD in his game Braid.

The solution to the problem​

VLC suggests the following fixes

• Regenerate the plugin cache (e.g. launch with vlc --reset-plugins-cache, or clear VLC’s cache under the user profile and relaunch)
• Reinstall VLC from the official build

However, a better suggestion came from a few users who noted that excluding vlc.exe in Microsoft Defender solves this problem. And I like this one better because it seems to address the problem where it originates, Microsoft Defender. And if the cache builds up, VLC may be slowed down again (I think).

The same was vouched by several people. So this sure looks like the workaround worth trying.