VideoLAN has released the version 3.0 of VLC for Android media player. This version is also simultaneously being released on other platforms. Now available in the Play Store, VLC 3.0 for Android brings a number of improvements as well as a couple of new features.

The biggest change in the new VLC is the Chromecast support. You will now be able to stream content from your Android device to your HDTV over Chromecast.

“Chromecast support is finally here. As soon as a Chromecast is detected by VLC, you can send it a video or audio media and enjoy watching it!
If media codecs are supported by your Chromecast device, VLC only acts as a streaming server (which is battery consuming). If not, VLC will transcode and stream media, which is highly cpu and battery consuming,” wrote Geoffrey Métais, Android developer at VideoLAN, in a blog post.

VideoLAN has said that the Chromecast support is currently in beta, so everything might not work perfectly.

Among other additions, VLC for Android has got an option to disable the auto-loading subtitles as well as delete support for content saved on SD cards. In terms of the improvements, the new VLC version packs faster seek in videos, fixes for delete on Android Oreo devices, performance enhancements and fixed artists/Album classification. VLC for Android will now also scan for Playlist files on your device.

VLC for Android will now work with Samsung DeX, Chromebooks and Android auto as well.

To remind you, VLC is a massively popular cross-platform media player, which supports playback of pretty much all media types. VLC for Android is completely free, has no ads and no in-app-purchases.

OnePlus Switch app gets local backup support

OnePlus has released a new version of its Switch app in the Play Store. This version adds the support for local backups as well as couple of other small improvements.

The backup feature works for contacts, call logs, messages, pictures, audio, video,system info and installed applications. You can transfer this backup to other devices or just use it to restore the same smartphone.

To remind you, OnePlus Switch is primarily used at the time of migrating to a new OnePlus smartphone.