About the situation with VKontakte

April 28, 2017 that Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki and My World are introducing a paid music subscription costing 149 rubles per month. And unsubscribed users are limited functionally. First of all, audio advertisements will be played from time to time. The free mode was deprived of the function of caching music for offline listening, and this is a key feature of the old VKontakte player.

The introduction of a subscription is a natural event; content cannot be pirated forever. At the same time, the new service looks strange, to say the least. After all, this is the same vast, unorganized catalogue, only now they ask for an amount comparable to competitors’ offers for use. At least two questions immediately arise!

How to return music to VKontakte?

At the time of publication of the article, there are several ways to return the usual functionality, and it is possible that over time the administration will block the loopholes.

The easiest way is to roll back to the previous version of the official client, number 4.8.3. To do this, just uninstall the updated client and manually install the apk file of the desired version.

Afterwards, it is recommended to disable auto-update of the VKontakte application. To do this:

In 2016, Mail.Ru Group launched an alternative music service with integration with VKontakte and Odnoklassniki. Unfortunately, already in August 2016, the application was hidden in Google Play, after which the client was no longer updated. This did not affect the performance of older versions in any way!

The main feature of the application is public playlists, which include songs from social networks. The users themselves create and maintain playlists.

After adding an account, all tracks and playlists are imported. The latter can be made publicly available and shared with friends. You don't even need a social account to listen.

Unfortunately, new tracks added on the site are not automatically imported; you have to synchronize the application manually.

There is no automatic caching of audio files; manual downloading is available. In addition to individual songs, you can download entire playlists, which significantly saves time.

The player interface looks neat, information about the composition is displayed. By clicking on the artist, a search with the corresponding request opens, extremely convenient! The program can substitute album covers, but, as a rule, they are incorrect. You can loop playback of an individual track or the entire playlist. The function of playing a random track is available.

From my point of view, this is the best alternative player for music from social networks! It is completely free and has no ads. The application itself is lightweight, works quickly and stably even on third-generation networks.

When talking about alternative players for VKontakte, one cannot fail to mention Stellio with the corresponding plugin for integration with the social network. The application has wide possibilities, here everything is configured down to the smallest details.

The player is great for playing music from VKontakte. In addition to all tracks, playlists and audio recordings saved on the wall are imported.

Each listened song is automatically cached, similar to previous versions of the official VK client. It is possible to preload the necessary tracks and playlists manually.

The player interface is made in modern style, the control elements are original, but quite convenient and do not require much getting used to. In addition to the basic functionality, additional functions have been added, such as searching for covers and viewing the text of a composition.

The application is notable for its own special effects manager.

As a result, it turns out that Stellio is a player with a bunch of additional features and settings. However, the free version is filled with advertising, and they ask for 99 rubles to turn it off.

I have listed the simplest and available methods, which do not require additional manipulations.

Alternatives to music from social networks?

Every year, music streaming services are becoming more widespread. Subscription is the most popular model; its essence is that for a small monthly fee the user gets access to the entire music collection.

All major streaming services from Spotify to Apple Music are available for the mobile operating system from the search giant. If you are not subscribed to any of them, I recommend that you contact close attention specifically on Google Play Music, as a native service.

A personal subscription costs 159 rubles per month, which is comparable to the cost of the new service from Mail.ru Group based on VKontakte. In addition, there is a family tariff for 6 family members for 239 rubles per month.

The main emphasis is on automatically created selections - radio stations. They contain music for all occasions: from training to getting ready for bed. A system of personal recommendations has also been implemented; you just need to add a dozen of your favorite songs to your music library, and the system will begin to select more and more similar tracks. Recommendations are issued based on location data and time of day.

Unfortunately, some performers are still missing. In this case, it is possible to download missing tracks from your computer. It is noteworthy that the service allows you to upload up to 50,000 songs to the cloud for listening online without a subscription!

In the settings, you can select one of four levels of streaming quality for any volume of the Internet package.

For offline listening, a caching system is used that saves only the most popular music files, and not everything in a row, like Stellio.

The icing on the cake is the web player, just log into your Google account from any personal computer and the entire music library will be at your disposal, very convenient!

As a result, it turned out, albeit a paid one, but the most interesting service in terms of all its characteristics. Best choice to listen to legal music!

Own music library online

For those who have already collected a rich music collection, but do not want to take up the precious memory of their mobile device, there is also a way out. Applications for streaming music from your personal cloud!

The most prominent representative of this category is CloudPlayer from doubleTwist. This is the same case when there is no clutter in the application additional options, and the necessary functionality is thought out to the smallest detail. Unlike Google Play Music, the necessary compositions simply need to be placed in your personal storage; no manipulations in the browser are required!

The application supports such cloud storages as: Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive.

Imported tracks are grouped according to tags. Despite the lack of Russian localization, there are no problems with encoding. The amount of music does not matter; the program does an excellent job with my music library, which contains more than 1,500 music files!

CloudPlayer supports lossless formats - FLAC and ALAC. To play them online, a stable Internet connection is required. mobile networks they don't always succeed.

There is no automatic caching, but you can manually download both individual tracks and entire albums and playlists.

The application is designed in a modern style, with 4 color schemes available to choose from. A nice option is the automatic addition of artist photos to the artist showcase, the search works accurately!

The player interface is familiar, it contains everything necessary functions like playing a random track. The application has a built-in simple equalizer with a large number of presets.

A nice bonus is an online radio catalog that includes local radio stations.

After installation, the trial is activated for 30 days, after its completion you will need to pay 99 rubles one-time. Compared to other services with monthly payment, it looks attractive!

Instead of output

For last year I have tested many players for streaming music, this approach is the future! Users should not waste their time downloading new songs to their smartphone; access to the entire music library in one click is not fantastic! Sometimes it’s a shame that music files take up precious internal storage space. The cloud approach allows you to selectively cache your favorite songs without losing access to other music.

As a result, it became clear that this is not a panacea; there are services with a better approach. The introduction of a paid subscription is another reason to try something new on personal experience! Social networks have lost their main advantage - they are free, which will undoubtedly affect their popularity.

VKontakte is the most popular in Russia social network with a simple and concise design. However, over the past few years, the interface of the application and the main website has undergone significant changes, which not all users liked. And if the old version of the site has sunk into oblivion forever, then with the phone application things are much better: you can always download the previous edition and continue to use it.

The design of the previous VK is simple and concise. At the same time, everyone is present necessary tools using social networks:

• the ability to write and publish a post;
• managing groups and content within them;
• subscription management;
• sending voice (depending on the age of the version) and text messages.

The interface language is, of course, Russian. Simplicity and functionality - this is the motto of the previous version.

Advantages over the new one

There are several advantages of the old VK over the updated one:

• absence of a “Stories” column on the news page;

• convenient and familiar type of dialogue.

These are the main advantages of the old application, not counting the fact that it is simply more familiar and convenient for many.

Important point: audio is not available in the legacy application.

Unfortunately, installing the previous version will not return the previous capabilities when listening to music. The developers simply blocked access to the cache from older builds. When you try to access audio recordings, the program will throw an error.

You can listen to music only from the updated program. When you try to save an mp3 to your device, you will be prompted to install the paid BOOM application, which allows you to access audio recordings even in the absence of the Internet.

Thus, free audio access is only available for listening to music. Saving is only available in a paid program.

Where to download

Only the updated program is downloaded from the Play Store - there is no opportunity to get any of the previous ones. It's good if you still have the installer version of the previous application. Otherwise, you will have to search for the APK online.

However, before installation, you need to do a few preparatory steps:

1. Delete the new VK, if installed, and clear the cache.

1. Prevent the Play Store from automatically updating applications. Go to the Google Store and swipe from left to right to open the menu.

1. Scroll down until you see Settings. Click on it.

1. In settings, select "Auto-update applications".

Here the phone will offer 3 options to choose from:

• never, i.e. no application will be updated without user participation;
• always – updates will be installed automatically as long as there is Internet access;
• only via Wi-Fi - this is to save traffic. Updates with this setting will only occur when Wi-Fi is turned on.

1. We need to select the first item. Otherwise, no matter what version we install, it will be updated to the newest one.

After completing all these steps, you can restore old version and use it calmly.

Attention! Be careful when downloading APKs from the Internet. Such files can easily carry a virus. Use only verified sources.

How to install

Go to the Android application menu.

1. To do this, click on the corresponding icon at the bottom of the screen.

1. Through the file manager (in in this case The File Commander application is used for this purpose) find the installer file.

1. By default, after downloading, it is located in the “Download” or “Downloads” folder.

1. Click on the appropriate icon to launch the installer.

1. Read the terms and, if you agree, click “Next” and “Install”.

1. Wait for the installation to complete.

1. After this, you will be given two options to choose from: immediately launch the application with the “Open” button or simply complete the installation with “Finish”.

1. To find installed application, click the corresponding button at the bottom of the home screen.

1. Find the icon you need in the list that opens. You can drag it to the start screen for convenience. After clicking on the shortcut, the application will launch.

1. Enter your registration details in the appropriate forms.

And click the “Login” button. Ready!

What are the alternatives?

Another option to return the old capabilities of the application is to install the Coffee VK modification on it. Here is a list of some of its features:

• listening and downloading music;
• the ability to transfer the cache to another medium;
• adjustable offline and online modes;
• the ability to read messages without marking them as read.

This is only a small part of the functions provided by this modification. True, they do not always work properly on all devices. Developers regularly add and improve their product. Whether you use it or not is up to you.

Conclusion

To summarize, we note that even though users like the previous VKontakte more, there are no serious reasons to replace it with a new one. After all, the most unpleasant innovation was the lack of the ability to download music. But the old version does not fix this problem.

Video

If you still have questions, we suggest watching a video on the topic.

VKontakte- a full-fledged client of the most popular social network in RuNet, released for mobile devices. The application program was created by professional IT specialists - the elite team of this social network, and therefore the main functions and capabilities of the computer version were moved here with special care.

Among other things, the application boasts many advantages. For example, played soundtracks are fully recorded in the memory of your device, for this reason you can listen to them in the absence of the Internet.

The instant messaging system has been slightly improved; from now on it looks much more ergonomic. The main functionality has been preserved. People can still read the news feed, watch movies, video clips, and other videos, add to their friends list, like, leave and comment on posts. Since now, a small number of games available on this social network have begun to be launched through the client. Today their list is still small, but in the future it should increase.

Application design and interface software perfectly adapted for touch screens android devices. Vk looks good on tablet PCs and cell phones. The side menu is located on the left side, and in normal mode it is actually completely hidden - only one icon is displayed, which can be used for lightning-fast access to many functions. There are an unlimited number of languages, including Russian. The creators of the Vk application were able to preserve the numerous qualities of the social network by developing a program that takes advantage of all the advantages of Android devices, and all in order to make users’ leisure time even more convenient and comfortable.

1. Disable auto-update of the VKontakte application on Google Play;
2. Delete new version of VK;
3. Restore the old VKontakte client.

Disabling VK auto-update on Google Play:

1. Launch the Play Store, go to “Options” by clicking on the corresponding icon (Alternatively, the icon with three horizontal stripes next to the inscription “Google Play”);
2. Select "Settings" and uncheck "Auto-update apps" (in some versions of the application you need to check the box "Never").

After these steps, the VK application installed from Google Play will no longer be able to update automatically, and you will be able to use the familiar old version of VK for Android without worrying that the client interface may change at any time due to next program update.

Uninstalling a new version of VK:

• Go to "Settings", then to "Applications", then select the new VKontakte application that disappointed you and delete it from your Android device.

Restoring the old VK client for Android:

Download and install the previous version of the official client of the VK social network for Android (you can find it by going to).

All. You have returned to your smartphone or tablet the familiar version of the VK application with an interface convenient for you, and it will not go anywhere again without your consent. There is no need to be afraid of automatic updates of the VKontakte social network client - you have blocked this opportunity.

The new version of the VKontakte application allowed us to once again verify that not all changes intended to improve and increase the usability of the application lead to these improvements. The tastes, habits and needs of users are purely individual. Fortunately, you can almost always find a way to return to the old, proven version of the program and continue communicating on a social network (in this case) under familiar conditions.

Information from 10/04/2017 : As a result of a change in VKontakte's audio recording policy in older versions of the client no longer available. Official response from VKontakte technical support on this matter.

Most recently, everyone’s favorite social network VKontakte radically changed its interface. Many people liked it, but there are still users for whom the old version of the application is more familiar, and there are actually quite a few of them. Let's talk about how to replace a new VC with an old one, and about something else interesting.

How to change a new version of VK to an old one on Android

After release new version On the site, many people are interested in one question - how to return the old version of VK, and is it even possible to do this. It’s quite possible to do this on Android, and the recovery process consists of three stages:

• Disable auto-update of the application in the Play Market.
• Removing a new version of VK.
• Restoring the old version.

Let's start the first stage. First you need to launch, then go to “Options” (the icon looks like three horizontal lines, it is located not far from the GooglePlay inscription). Click on “Settings” and uncheck the “Auto-update applications” checkbox; in some versions you need to check the “Never” checkbox. This completes the first step; it must be done so that the old version does not automatically update.

And now we’ll actually find out how to make the VKontakte application old. Everything is very simple, you just need to download the required version from the link https://trashbox.ru/link/vkontakte-android. Now you can use the old VKontakte application without worrying that it will be updated.

How to save music in the mobile version of VKontakte

Another significant drawback of the new version of VKontakte is that you cannot cache music in the application on Android. This problem can be solved very easily: all you need to do is download the old version of VK from the site that we already mentioned above, and disable the auto-update of the application in PlayMarke, which we also discussed above.

Caching music on iPhone

It is very inconvenient for owners of Apple devices, since they constantly need to synchronize the device via iTunes. To greatly simplify the process, many people use special programs for this.

One such program is lazytool2.com. First of all, you need to go to Personal account and log in using your . However, you need to keep in mind that this application is not official, so there is still some risk of a security breach.

After this, in a new window you must select the “Install LazyTool” action and confirm the installation by pressing the button in the “Install” dialog box. After the installation is completed, you need to go to the “Settings” menu, then to “General”, then to the “Profiles and device management” section, find “VektumTsentr, OOO”. Click on this button, after which you need to select the “Trust VektumTsentr, OOO” option and confirm your decision in the dialog box.

Next, go to the application itself and click on the Settings button, which is located in the lower field; you need to press it quickly 10 times in a row. This way you enable the application's secret mode. If everything is done correctly, a notification appears indicating that you need to restart the application.

Close the program completely and enter it again. After launch, select the “VKontakte” tab and log in using your account. You can log in to the system in two ways - with access to messages (to send tracks to friends in private messages) and without it. You need to choose the method that suits you.

How to download the VK version on an iPhone

If you compare the versions of the VKontakte application for Android and iOS, many will find the second more convenient. You can install the VK application on an iPhone, but you should understand that it is unofficial, so searching in PlayMarket is doomed to failure. You can download such a program on the already familiar website trashbox.ru/link/vk-app-2.0-android. First, go to the site, then download and install the .apk file. However, it is worth checking that your device can download applications from unverified sources.

To do this, you need to go to “Settings”, then go to the “Security” section. The second line is called “Unknown sources”, this is where you need to check the box. After this, you must confirm your action in a new window. Thus, we allow the phone to download applications not only from PlayMarket.

Benefits of the application

Externally, the program looks exactly like on an iPhone, although it was created for Android. The design is completely identical to the iOS application, even the label matches. All icons in the application are round, which is typical for Apple devices. In addition, the scrolling animation is much superior to the standard one in the Android application.

The developers copied absolutely everything - from the convenient slider for scrolling the page to emoticons. This application has additional function, which is not in the program for iPhone - . This mode allows you not to be displayed online, even if you are using the application in at the moment. In general, the program works perfectly without errors or glitches, and the interface is completely copied from the iPhone application.