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VLC Blacklists Newer Huawei Devices To Combat Negative App Reviews (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Some newer Huawei phones are actively being blocked from installing the open-source VLC media player app from Google Play. VLC's developers announced today that they're blacklisting some of Huawei's devices after unhappy users left too many one-star reviews for the app. But the negative reviews stem from a decision on Huawei's part and has nothing to do with VLC. The negative reviews are a result of Huawei's aggressive battery management and tendency to kill background apps, which directly affects VLC's background audio playback feature. Huawei users on VLC's forums are well aware of the issue. It's possible to manually disable these battery optimizations and have the app function properly in the background, but VLC claims that people often don't know how to do that, so they blame the app instead. The devices being blacklisted are the Huawei P8, P10, and P20. Users can still manually download the APK from VLC's website if they're interested in using the player.
Opinion. VLC is far from the best media player.
It may be the player capable of playing the most formats independent of system codecs.
It may be the player with support for extensible features and filters
It may be the best player for transmitting video over the network.
I have it installed for those reasons alone, but I for one use it as a backup.
IMO the interface is crap, the file handling is crap, using it is infuriating, seeking accurately is a PITA, and I prefer MPC-HC in every way.
Though maybe once in a blue moon I find a file that doesn't play properly in MPC-HC, then I open it in VLC and usually find it broken enough to not continue trying with VLC as well.