VideoLAN wanted to start the year off on the right foot. Well, at least with some activity, since on 1/1/26 they published VLC 3.0.23However, the term "published" needs some clarification: the source code has been uploaded, but it's not available for download on their official website. In fact, it's still not even listed there. previous versionAnd what's being offered is version 3.0.21. When it will arrive on the different Linux distributions or when they will offer it on their website as an available version is another matter that we won't discuss here.
VLC 3.0.23 is a small updateas they all are supposed to be until the release of VLC 4.0, which was brought forward in 2019. Among its new features, support has been added to display additional audio codec information, especially for 24-bit FLAC, the color palette of dark mode in Qt has been improved, and compatibility has been added for taglib 2.0, FFmpeg 8, mingw-w64 v13 and new versions of libplacebo and pupnp.
Other improvements in VLC 3.0.23
VLC 3.0.23 It also fixes several bugsThese include issues with WebVTT line positioning, problems with some JPEG files containing JFIF headers, image display with D3D11, OpenGL module compilation, and a problem with `config_GetUserDir()` that creates files on Windows. Additionally, security patches have been added.
VLC 3.0.23 can be downloaded from videolan.org, but, as we've explained, that's not what's offered. What you can do now is click on the tarball option, which will start downloading version 3.0.21, and then change the version number in the URL bar to the new one. Or better yet, click on this linkWhat you'll download is that tarball, that is, the raw software ready to compile. My personal recommendation is that you don't do it, because wait until your Linux distribution does it and install it at that time.
What lies ahead in 2026 and probably beyond are small updates like this one. VideoLAN is working on releasing VLC 4.0, the future version we've been waiting for for three or four years. It's unknown when it will arrive, but at least we know that VLC is still in active development.