VLC Beta for Android hits the Play Store

The good news is, VLC Beta was released today, giving Android users a long-awaited taste of do-it-all media player VLC. The bad news is, VLC’s developers say the app is meant only for power users and hackers, meaning most of us should probably wait on downloading it.

Just like its bigger brothers on Mac and Windows, VLC is a free and open-source multimedia player that can open just about any media file out there. It offers an audio and video media library with full search capabilities, and supports subtitles and network streams, including HLS.

While VLC Beta is available to the public now, its developers make it clear that it is still an early build with a lot of unfinished elements. According to them, it’s unstable and slow, and in much need of performance improvements and a UI face-lift. Also, audio issues may occur when using it, and hardware decoding “works only with a limited set of hardware.”

All that said, if you still want to give this fan favorite a try, VLC Beta is available now for free from Google Play.