What is vkvideo?

VKvideo is a small tool that lets you search for videos on Vkontakte (a popular Russian social network, similar to Facebook) directly from your computer's desktop, then play them with a single click. It was built for Ubuntu users who wanted a faster way to find and watch VK videos without having to open a browser and navigate the website manually. The tool works as a "lens" for the Unity desktop environment, which was the default interface for Ubuntu Linux. A lens is essentially a search bar built into your desktop menu, similar to how you might search for apps or files. With this lens installed, you could type a search query into your desktop's search panel, and it would query VK's video database and show you matching results right there. Clicking a result would open and play the video using Totem, a standard media player on Ubuntu. The main audience for this project is Linux users, specifically those running older versions of Ubuntu that still used the Unity desktop. For example, if you frequently watched videos hosted on VK and wanted to skip the browser, this tool would let you search and launch videos as easily as searching for a local file. It was a niche convenience tool aimed at people who lived in the VK ecosystem and preferred a desktop-native experience. The project itself is quite small and straightforward, written in Python. Installation on Ubuntu was handled through a personal package archive (PPA), which is a common way to distribute software on Ubuntu outside of the official app store. Developers could also clone the repository and install it manually using the included setup script. Since Unity was eventually discontinued as Ubuntu's default desktop, this tool is largely a product of its time and would only be relevant to those still running Unity-based environments.