Let’s face it, playing your average video file isn’t nearly as easy as it used to be. We used to able to pop a video into any old player and we wouldn’t be bombarded with complaints by the program as to the format or “digital rights” protection. With the addition of all sorts of obscure proprietary formats out there, just playing a video file can prove to be frustratingly challenging. Thankfully for us, it doesn’t have to be, thanks to VLC.

VLC is designed as a cross platform player who’s elegance lies in it’s simplicity. It may not be as flashy as Winamp or Windows Media Player, but it comes equipped with superior usability and more far-reaching features. It can play just about any video file that you want to throw at it. In addition, it has the ability to play any videos you happen to be downloading as you download them, no matter what format they exist in. You’ll often notice that videos are saved as a temporary, unclassified file type before they finish downloading. VLC will still play it for you!

VLC will also do it’s best to play any video, any time, anywhere. Even if you come across something it can’t play, it will step up to the plate and try to play it anyway. This is often met with mixed success, but it’ll display it in raw format or scrambled video, rather than just come up with a blank message saying “nope can’t do that.”

VLC is designed in a particularly straightforward manner as well. It doesn’t try to do everything, just what it was made to do. As a result you’ll notice that the interface is typically a bare bones format, with the idea to make the interface as unobtrusive as possible. You can also operate just about any area of the program with the click of a mouse. This makes VLC a great all around choice for just about any user looking to play video files.