By Sean Endicott
Publication Date: 2026-08-14 16:25:00
A dramatic saga is unfolding on X, and VLC and Microsoft Defender are at the center of it. Things kicked off when video game designer Jonathan Blow criticized the open source community due to an issue he had with VLC.
A curious issue causes MP3 files to take a while to open in VLC. In some cases, opening a file can take over 30 seconds.
“Finally switched *away* from VLC *to* Microsoft Media Player, because VLC now takes 33 seconds to start playing an mp3 after clicking on it,” said Blow. He added, “A large sector of open source software is in a truly embarrassing place now…”
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Blow’s post now shows a community note because the bug is due to Microsoft Defender, not VLC. Or at least, that’s the claim of several people on X.
VideoLAN, the makers of VLC, responded to Blow:
“This is because of a « bug » from Microsoft Defender in one update of Windows 11, who magically made VLC plugins cache…
