VLC for Android is not a beautiful application.
It does not follow the fluid design trends of Google’s Material You. It does not have the glass morphism or the bouncy animations that dominate the best apps lists of 2025.
It looks like legacy desktop software that was dragged onto a smartphone screen.
One of the best video players on Android looks like Windows 7, and that is exactly why I trust it with my entire media library.
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I am stuck on a flight. I have ten hours to kill, and a smartphone loaded with movie files that I spent half the night transferring from my Chromebook.
I open the stock video player on a device that costs more than my first car, and I am met with a blank screen and an error message that the codec is not supported.
Stock media players only include codecs that the manufacturer has officially licensed. It’s pennies per device, but at scale, those pennies turn into tens of millions.
Brands cut the licenses, assuming users will primarily stream through pre-licensed services like Netflix or YouTube.
Apps like VLC and MX Player don’t play by the same rules as the built-in player.
They use the phone’s CPU to decode video in software, which skips all the licensing nonsense. That’s why they can open files your stock player refuses to touch.
VLC ignores modern design trends and focuses on function
VLC is the ultimate “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it” app, but at this point, it’s starting to look prehistoric.
It’s a total contrast to the Material You philosophy that Google is pushing.
If you put it side by side with something like Next Player, which is built on Material 3, the cracks really start to show.
Saying that, I think the lack of prettiness is a defense mechanism against the kind of bloat that kills other apps.
When developers obsess over form, the function usually takes a hit.
VLC is a tool for people who want a player that can handle any file, not people who need a play button with a perfect 200ms animation curve.
The only legitimate critique I can give is the lack of visual contrast.
The yellow-orange color representing VLC’s branding blends with the background. This makes it difficult to locate key icons or read information.
However, after the video starts, the ugly interface is replaced by something nearly perfect. You know the one.
Slide your thumb up the left side of the screen to boost brightness. Slide up the right to crank the volume. Drag horizontally to go through the timeline.
Third-party video players ran Android because the native ones were awful, and honestly, not much has changed.
VLC was part of that era, but MX Player sat at the top. It was fast and packed with features.
Then the ads showed up. Now, using the free version feels like punishment.
You are bombarded with ads while browsing your files, ads when you pause a video, and ads leaking into the notification panel.
Scroll through the Play Store reviews, and you will see the same complaints repeated again and again. The Play Store is full of video players plagued by the same problems.
VideoLAN maintains integrity without chasing ad revenue
While many once-great video players collapsed under monetisation pressure, VLC never went down that road.
It’s a FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) project maintained by VideoLAN, not a company chasing ad impressions or engagement metrics.
There’s no marketing department, no dark patterns, and no incentive to squeeze value out of your viewing habits. It plays your files, respects your device, and stays out of the way.
This is why, even if it looks a little old-school, it continues to earn trust long after its competitors lost theirs.
It’d be dishonest to pretend VLC is the only “good” app left on the Play Store. There are plenty of solid open source video players that deserve credit.
Still, I default to VLC because it’s reliable. It’s familiar. It’s been there for me on both PC and Android for years.
The orange cone remains my trusted media player
We are surrounded by beautiful but useless apps that look like a million dollars but crash the moment they see an MKV file or need a login to view a local folder.
VLC is one of the few video players I trust because it treats me like a person, not a data point to be harvested.
While the orange cone is an eyesore, you’ll value that design the moment VLC opens a file that broke every other player.
