Installing VLC in Chrome to playback all kinds of video
Just like everybody else I know, I have tons of video in random formats that I can’t seem to get to play back in my web browser. Video LAN offers an amazing video player and its installer includes a chrome extension. This post will cover the basics for installing VLC and testing that it works as a chrome plugin:
- Download VLC
- After the download completes, click the installer.
- Install VLC with all of the extensions / plugins
- From your Chrome web browser, browse to chrome://plugins
- Now, you will see an option, “VLC Web Plugin”. If this line is available, you have successfully installed the VLC player plugin for Chrome.
To test the VLC plugin, you can visit the VLC Plugins demo page. A reader suggested that Kodi may also be helpful to get your content streaming.
does this work for mac chrome? i can’t get the VLC Chrome plug-in to work in Chrome. I tried to full install as well as the plug-in only
As far as I know, yes! On Mac Chrome, the VLC plugin is installed when you install VLC after installing Chrome. *Update* As mentioned by fez, the plugin for Chrome is not installed alongside the OSX version on recent releases of OSX.
No, Isn’t true.
The VLC plugin on Mac it’s only supported on Leopard and older OS X, also you need a separated package). On Mac there a no installer for VLC, just copy the app to “/Applications”.
.
For OS X 10.6 -> 10.9 there are no VLC plugins as they ate 64bit OSes.
PD: @gguuss, please don’t answer things that you don’t really know. It makes you look like a liar.
@fez Thanks for the candid feedback 🙂 I suppose my notes are a bit focused to Windows because I was using Windows when writing the article. However, I don’t think that the VLC folks are intentionally alienating recent versions of OSX, there is probably a good reason support isn’t there or they don’t have developers who target OSX. I’ll see if I can find a solution to OSX, but I suppose you could copy the stream URL and open via URL on OSX.
Do you have a way around that for OS 10.6-10.9?
No workaround for OSX, they are actively developing a client but that’s all I know. Apparently it’s a ways away.
Hey Fez –
So still on VLC Plugin for 10.9? Thx for any advice!
-d
@dens
You sound like a complete asshole. He prefaced the post with saying “as far as I know”. He wasn’t trying to mislead anyone, he was just trying to help. Go back to your moms’ basement, neckbeard.
Thanks for this solution! VLC Plugin already worked on my computer in IE, only not in Chrome.
On the webpage chrome://plugins/ I found VLC Web Plugin and just had to check the box that said ‘always give permission’ (translation from Dutch, don’t really know what’s there in English). That was all I had to do and now it works!!!
@fez Do you have a solution to the problem then?
I didn’t see the chrome plugin for VLC after installing the latest VLC player in my windows 8 laptop
Did you check the plugin checkboxes on the installer? They could be easy to skip and wouldn’t be there if you were installing from zip.
Hi, I installed the latest version and never got a page asking about plugins. I Am running OS X, is there a way for me to install just the plugin somehow?
I didn’t see the plug-in with the 64-bit VLC. But I see it with the 32-bit VLC (I’m running 64-bit Windows 8.1).
That said, the plug-in is NPAPI-based and Chrome is now blocking NPAPI plug-ins, so it still won’t work. VLC needs an updated plugin!
I would love to contribute but other projects are occupying all my time. If you’re interested in getting involved, check: http://www.videolan.org/contribute.html
Here is a workaround for Mac
Download the extension called “File Manger”
Then type the URL of the video file in your omni bar
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/file-manager/egoilkobbnkdafmcllnicbohlpjcjegl?utm_source=chrome-ntp-icon
Working fine for me
The URL you listed only gets me to File Manager again. It does NOT get me to the VLC 64-bit plugin for Chrome on a Mac.
All,
I hope that someone can help me here. I have a mac and I have downloaded the VLC software, version 2.1.4 when I install it I never see an option for installing plug-ins. I checked chrome://plugins and there is no VLC plugin installed.
Did anyone see this issue before? can someone help?
thanks!!!
–Mercedes
The plugin does not have a Mac port yet (the article was focused to Windows).
Can anyone help me, my vlc web plugin keeps crashing on chrome
Hrm, so VLC does not currently support Chrome, then?
I have both players VLC and ACE installed in Windows, but Chrome doesn’t even lists them under chrome://plugins/
Funny that some media links in Chrome have the right-click option to open with ACE player, but then there is popping up error, saying that plugin isn’t installed. This all is way too amateurish: even today in 2015 it still feels like 90-ies.
I followed all of the instructions… got to the very bottom to find that there is no plug-in in my chrome….
what gives?
Here are the steps to fix this problem.
1. Open Chrome and type “chrome://flags/#enable-npap” in the browser.
2. Look for “Enable NPAPI” (search the page with ctrl+F)
and simply press on Enable.
3. Restart your Chrome browser and it should work.
_(Extra steps if the 3 steps didn’t work)_
4. If It didn’t work then go to the plug-in link for chrome “chrome://plugins/”
and see if it’s there.
5. If it is then Enable it. If its not there then make sure that you have VLC in 32-bit installed and that you installed the web plugins from the VLC installation.
6. When the plugin is installed make sure to restart you Chrome browser for it to recognize the vlc plugin.
Well now it wouldn’t work, cause NPAPI is disabled in Chrome. You will need to use different plugin, not VLC.
I have found this one for my project – VXG Plugin based on NaCl, here is the demo page – http://rtpstream.com/nacl_player/
Plays really all streaming video
Answer given by Mazyar is not working from 01 September 2015 as chrome remove supporting npapi plugins.
If anyone has the recent solution then please share with us.
Thanks!
This dont work because in that page is not NPAPI!
2. Look for “Enable NPAPI” (search the page with ctrl+F)
and simply press on Enable.
It’s not working for me, Any solution please.