Most of the games not running today would run perfectly if they did not have some bullshit anti-cheat implemented (Easy Anti-Cheat is I think the worst offender here).
Source: personal experience checking ProtonDB for games I want to play
I understand developers needs for decent Anti-Cheat and I am not faulting them for using Anti-Cheat systems in general.
But Kernel level Anti-Cheats should not exist. No application should ever have this level of access over your entire PC.
You have no idea what these Anti-Cheats are doing, you have no idea what data they are collecting and sending to whom and you have no idea what kind of security flaws they introduce.
For all you know every password you type on your computer is shared with the companies using Kernel Level Anti-Cheat. Your PC might as well have no password anymore.
If someone finds an exploit for Easy Anti-Cheat (or any of the other dozen Kernel level Anti-Cheats out there) and deploys a Virus over it then your best bet is turning religious because praying for divine intervention would be more effective than any Anti-Virus software.
Well if that were working I doubt we’d have two dozen Anti-Cheat Systems. You can lock down a system as much as you want the cheaters will always find a way unless the game itself discourages it.
And then this isn’t as much about privacy as it is about basic system security. I mean sure the privacy concern is there but it’s less of a concern for most people. There’s not much to gain from a rootkit with average Joe, after all their entire life is already on Instagram. No the far more serious part is that these Anti-Cheats are ripping country sized holes into your computers security, as can be seen beautifully by Genshin’s kernel level malware anti-cheat being used as a convenient rootkit for a ransomware (https://www.pcgamer.com/ransomware-abuses-genshin-impacts-kernel-mode-anti-cheat-to-bypass-antivirus-protection/). If you are willing to compromise your PC’s security for a tiny decrease in cheaters sure go ahead, but don’t come crying when it inevitably blows up in your face and your PC becomes the victim of a hack exploiting this shit.
Once upon a time all Apps ran on Kernel level, there’s a reason we don’t do that anymore.
Battlebit Remastered ran fine with EZ anti-cheat through steam on Mint 21.3, with no exra steps required, just this week. Did something get fixed, or was I just lucky?
iirc Easy-Anticheat has a sort of “Lite” mode that also runs on Linux, enabling it makes the games work with Proton but iirc degrades the Anticheat capabilities on those Systems. Because the Linux Anticheat isn’t as effective (and because it’s an Opt-In) most games don’t use it.
Talking a lot out of my ass here but I think that’s how it was explained back when they made that change.
Most of the games not running today would run perfectly if they did not have some bullshit anti-cheat implemented (Easy Anti-Cheat is I think the worst offender here).
Source: personal experience checking ProtonDB for games I want to play
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I understand developers needs for decent Anti-Cheat and I am not faulting them for using Anti-Cheat systems in general.
But Kernel level Anti-Cheats should not exist. No application should ever have this level of access over your entire PC. You have no idea what these Anti-Cheats are doing, you have no idea what data they are collecting and sending to whom and you have no idea what kind of security flaws they introduce. For all you know every password you type on your computer is shared with the companies using Kernel Level Anti-Cheat. Your PC might as well have no password anymore. If someone finds an exploit for Easy Anti-Cheat (or any of the other dozen Kernel level Anti-Cheats out there) and deploys a Virus over it then your best bet is turning religious because praying for divine intervention would be more effective than any Anti-Virus software.
Has that literally ever happened with kernal level anti-cheats?
https://www.pcgamer.com/ransomware-abuses-genshin-impacts-kernel-mode-anti-cheat-to-bypass-antivirus-protection/
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Well if that were working I doubt we’d have two dozen Anti-Cheat Systems. You can lock down a system as much as you want the cheaters will always find a way unless the game itself discourages it.
And then this isn’t as much about privacy as it is about basic system security. I mean sure the privacy concern is there but it’s less of a concern for most people. There’s not much to gain from a rootkit with average Joe, after all their entire life is already on Instagram. No the far more serious part is that these Anti-Cheats are ripping country sized holes into your computers security, as can be seen beautifully by Genshin’s kernel level
malwareanti-cheat being used as a convenient rootkit for a ransomware (https://www.pcgamer.com/ransomware-abuses-genshin-impacts-kernel-mode-anti-cheat-to-bypass-antivirus-protection/). If you are willing to compromise your PC’s security for a tiny decrease in cheaters sure go ahead, but don’t come crying when it inevitably blows up in your face and your PC becomes the victim of a hack exploiting this shit.Once upon a time all Apps ran on Kernel level, there’s a reason we don’t do that anymore.
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Huh? Easy Anti-Cheat is the one that actually works for me on Linux.
see my reply to another comment here. I mentioned EAC simply because most games use it and don’t enable the required flag for Linux support.
Ah, TIL! Thanks :]
Battlebit Remastered ran fine with EZ anti-cheat through steam on Mint 21.3, with no exra steps required, just this week. Did something get fixed, or was I just lucky?
iirc Easy-Anticheat has a sort of “Lite” mode that also runs on Linux, enabling it makes the games work with Proton but iirc degrades the Anticheat capabilities on those Systems. Because the Linux Anticheat isn’t as effective (and because it’s an Opt-In) most games don’t use it.
Talking a lot out of my ass here but I think that’s how it was explained back when they made that change.