Online multiplayer games are often very competitive beasts. So, everyone wants to get better scores and make it to the top of the leaderboards.
Unfortunately, this means that some players could be tempted to use cheats to win their way to victory. Cheating is not just limited to the rankings either, as some aim to disrupt the experience of other gamers too.
Which is where Easy Anti-Cheat comes in.
What Is Easy Anti-Cheat?
Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) is a program developed by Epic Games that is often installed along with a supported game. It prevents cheaters from abusing the game exploits to their advantage.
To clarify, EAC does not aim to detect the usage of cheats/exploits but block it in the first place.
If you are curious, cheats make it easy for a player to level up, defeat opponents, and gain in-game rewards.
Epic Games primarily tailored Easy Anti-Cheat for online multiplayer games. It supports Windows, macOS, and Linux (via Proton). At the time of writing, none of the multiplayer games on Linux have enabled support for EAC yet because the official support has only recently been added to it.
How Does Easy Anti-Cheat Work?
The tool will start running in the background whenever you launch a game that uses the Easy Anti-Cheat service. You can head to the task manager on Windows to check whether the Easy Anti-Cheat process is running.
You should find it listed as "EasyAntiCheat Launcher", as shown in the image below.
While Epic Games does not disclose official details of how it works, there are some possibilities. The anti-cheat service accesses your files to look for unusual modifications that might point to the use of cheats.
Technically, the anti-cheat tool detects malicious behavior caused by any file conflicts while interacting with the game and stops the player from playing the game at all. In other words, it prevents any illegal modifications and configuration changes that enable the use of exploits in a game.
What Games Support Easy Anti-Cheat?
Easy Anti-Cheat comes baked into a variety of games. It is worth noting that you cannot install it as an anti-cheat tool for an unsupported game.
To give you an example, some of the popular games that use Easy Anti-Cheat include:
- Battlefield 2042
- Fortnite
- Apex Legends
You can check the official EAC website for a complete list of supported games. Regardless, it is a popular anti-cheat tool used in multiplayer games.
Can I Install and Uninstall Easy Anti-Cheat Separately?
Easy Anti-Cheat gets installed along with the supported game. So, you do not have to install it for any of the supported games manually.
However, you can choose to uninstall it if you want to do so.
It is not as convenient as uninstalling any other program, however. So, you will have to find the executable file of the setup that was installed by the game.
If you head to Program Files (x86) > EasyAntiCheat, you should find the setup file. You need to double-click on that as you would do for an installation file.
As shown in the screenshot below, it should let you select the game and then repair, uninstall, or install it.
If you attempt to install any of the games that support EAC, the game will automatically install Easy Anti-Cheat if you have removed it. Once it has been installed, it does not need to be re-installed for other games that support Easy Anti-Cheat.
Should I Stop the Easy Anti-Cheat Process?
The Easy Anti-Cheat process runs in the background without any foreground activity. So, it should not bother you when playing a game. It does not consume significant system resources, so it should not affect the performance by a significant margin.
While you can stop the process in the task manager, doing so means you will no longer be able to play the game.
Easy Anti-Cheat Is a Useful Anti-Cheat Tool
There are several anti-cheat tools out there. Some of them more invasive and aggressive than you would expect.
However, Easy Anti-Cheat seems to strike a balance between being a strict anti-cheat service while offering minimal hassle to gamers.