// ITS FOSS — LINUX & OPEN SOURCE
VLC is Wrongly Blamed for Microsoft Defender's Clumsiness
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.
Finally switched *away* from VLC *to* Microsoft Media Player, because VLC now takes 33 seconds to start playing an mp3 after clicking on it.A large sector of open source software is in a truly embarrassing place now... pic.twitter.com/237aLdx2fG
And he also shamed open source software, framing it as a sign that large part of open-source software is in bad shape.
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.
A Linux user who goes by the X account @VoxelPrismatic jumped in with concrete evidence that it is not a core VLC issue but a Windows issue.
In this tweet, the user shared a recording of what seems like a Linux distro running KDE. Recording clearly showed VLC started playing an MP3 file in 1-2 seconds.
sounds like a windows issue ngl pic.twitter.com/9Icp2Sf58M