Brewchin

Saw the YT video for this a while back (~15 mins) and thought it mostly a nostalgic throwback to the stuff we saw or hoped for in the 80s and 90s. If “how can we charge rent for this?” hadn’t come along and destroyed innovation, anyway.

It seems more like a proof of concept, as it just fills soapy water up past the seal line, shows progress and wildlife scenes on screen (which will definitely be used to advertise at you eventually), sprays your face and other bits above the water line, drains, and then blow dries you. You’d still need to scrub, and wash your back, butt, etc.

I was kind of hoping for one of those sonic/pulsing water/jet-wash/scrubbing shower things you see in SF. This isn’t it.

But it is great that some companies are still innovating. It’s been a while.

Just realised that I automatically filter out obvious scams, as I genuinely didn’t register the contents of either of those spam boxes…

That arrangement has existed for over 30 years, and it’s now an unconscious scan. 😒

But I think the point remains in the middle of the page, that it will run through the standard bullshit FOMO timer, and then start downloading the expected binary.

And it’s not VLC doing any advertising. They’re just choosing to use a shit download site to host the binary for that OS and download method

First indication of fake I’ve seen so far, based on OP’s detail-light post. I’d assumed the FOMO timer would eventually download the genuine binary.

So, share with the class…

Gonna need a bit more info than you’ve provided.

What I will note, from the information that you’ve provided, is that you shared an internet exchange screenshot showing a couple of low key ads (with the usual opt out bullshit links), so any ads are not on the VLC site - it’s on their download partner site, a la 1995 - and they’re probably the most tame ads (repeat: not benefiting VLC) that I’ve seen in 30 years.

tl;dr: Late-stage PSTN/POTS dialup configuration of binaries hosted on a third party (pre-CDN) download site -who are free to inject whatever spam they like - (but have been astonishingly restrained here) along with the download link.