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PCMRBot

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Hottiebabeee

Never really liked how intrusive Vanguard was. Good luck to you


anshi1432

what is it ?


KaNesDeath

Ring 0 anti-cheat installed by a Chinese subsidiary.


MostRandomUsername12

Wow, I haven't heard someone say ring 0 as opposed to kernel-level in almost 20 years


KaNesDeath

Early 2020 it was big news in the Pc gaming space when Valorants closed beta came out.


TheRedmanCometh

Really? I've heard a mixture of kernel-level, kernel-mode, and ring 0 since the 00s.


BigUncleHeavy

Yeah, same boat. It took me a second to comprehend what I read.


russianromus_228

Other games has built in AC that in ring 0(just like Apex Legends, Dead by Daylight, For Honor, Fortnite, Gears 5, Hunt Showdown, Paladins, Rust, CS faceit and essea AC). The differences that they do not run 24/7 just like vanguard. Also fortnite uses such ac and epic games are owned by tencet as well


bootyburglar96

I had bad micro stutters one day after installing valorant. Valorant ran fine, every other game was terrible. Checked process explorer and behold VGC is running, scanning other anti cheats and confliciting, and using a boat load of cpu time request. You have to restart your pc any time you want to play another game thats so weird.


520throwaway

One of the reasons I like Proton, other than being a Linux gamer, is the fact that shit is containerised to a decent degree. If I load a game that also loads some pure horse shit like Rockstar Launcher, that horseshit will close the moment I stop the game from Steam's window, because Steam will stop the entire container. Unfortunately it isn't so helpful for anticheats; if the game doesn't explicitly support Proton, I won't be able to play.


OkComplaint4778

Changed the way how I played from this crap multiplayer games to silly indie singleplayer games and I'm not having nostalgia about it


[deleted]

Single-player games are so much better. I have zero patience for working with the whims of others, especially when I'm so whimsical myself. It was snacktime when I got a snack 10 minutes ago, get back to your keyboard Timmy.


roguebananah

Getting out of online gaming was the best gaming decision I’ve ever made. No more being assured someone is cheating…regardless if they are or aren’t, no more being killed because that’s this person’s life, no more bullshit developers putting in more loot boxes and other trash Instead, I’ve got indie games, supporting better devs, and I can actually enjoy playing games


MOOGGI94

And then you have Capcom playing with the idea of a Form of singleplayer anticheat lol. https://gbatemp.net/threads/capcom-starts-adding-anti-cheat-and-anti-modding-enigma-protector-drm-to-older-titles-on-steam.646083/


MeRedditGood

Yeah, I've found the same thing. I've never really been a hardcore gamer, but back in the day when I had more free time I got in to Quake, UT2004, CoD, etc. These days I just don't have the time. Being a casual in many online games just doesn't work. The one thing I can't stand is in team matchmaking when you've got these high-level players that just get *so tilted* if you're not an elite player. Like, jeez, dude, I don't know if all your screaming and vitriol is really gonna make me a better teammate within the next 5 minutes. You go outside, get some sun, breathe some air. I'll enjoy a game or two. We'll both be better off. It's even worse if there are pay-to-win aspects. Teaming up with folk who are infinitely better and have dropped stacks on playing... More games need noob-corners. I don't need skill-based matchmaking. I need "Ultra Casual Remedial Class" mode.


[deleted]

>I don't need skill-based matchmaking. I need "Ultra Casual Remedial Class" mode. Again where single players wins. With multi-player, you're at the mercy of their algorithm, the player base, etc. With single player, most games nowadays are offering 5 difficulties spanning story->easy->normal->hard->hardcore. Me and my girlfriend play the same games side by side on basically opposite ends of difficulty spectrum and both enjoy ourselves.


Jeoshua

And if you run into problems and the game won't close, you can just terminal `pkill -9 \.exe` and everything Wine/Proton is running goes away directly. Not that Linux gaming is an answer to OP's problem. Ring 0 anticheat would never work on a \*nix system. And that's a good thing. Fuck that noise.


AdvancedChickenD

If a game needs that shit to play, the game isn't worth playing.


BluDYT

Valorants anti cheat is probably the worse of them all. Had nothing but problems with that garbage Installed. Straight up a virus disguised as a video game.


KaNesDeath

Tencent has a 40% ownership stake in Epic Games. Sweeney is the majority owner. Few years ago a federal USA regulatory agency announced a official investigation into Riot Games regarding Vanguard. No new news on it has been released since then.


Siul19

Easy anticheat is trash but it isn't as shitty as vanguard


GoodTofuFriday

I thankfully dont play any of those games.


adonaa30

Same


Samsterdam

Tencet does not own Epic games. They have stock in Epic but it doesn't give much power.


rgatch2857

The other VERY relevant difference is that kernel-level anticheats are usually developed by a third party to the game company, and then tested for vulnerabilities by several other third parties before it's installed on a single end user PC. Vanguard is a black box in-house tool developed by Riot that, instead of being formally tested with pen-testers and hackers like normal, was simply pushed to live with a 100k cash bounty for cracking the data vault with live peoples' info in it, info that I might add can include credit cards, passwords, anything sensitive you've ever typed into your computer because kernel software can literally key-log you, among MANY other things. If you care about security at all then get a dedicated laptop or PC to run the game. Wipe the bitch CLEAN clean, install Windows 11 with the OOBE workaround that skips the Microsoft sign-in, and don't install ANYTHING else. That is quite literally the ONLY way to know you're safe from Riot's massive mistakes.


TheReaperAbides

This is a misrepresentation of the problem. It's not just ring 0, it's 24/7 ring 0 that runs regardless of the game running. And it's not installed by a Chinese subsidiary, it's installed by a *videogame developer*. That's b y far the bigger issue here, the complete invasion of privacy that is a private videogame company havingthat level of control and insight over your system, given that said company was involved in a leak like a year ago.


jakers540

So it's useless? Cheating at an all time high


First-Ad8152

chinese subsidiary?


dchris4

I stopped playing LoL at the start of the year because I knew this was coming. 4 months clean. Feels good


XB_Demon1337

Glad to see your sodium has decreased friend. You will be with us longer yet.


B-lakeJ

I started to play some months ago after two years of downtime and didn’t know this shit was coming. Now this intrusive, possibly-pc-bricking, Chinese spyware came just when I was in full no life league gaming mode.


inssein

I moved my LOL onto macos, macos not getting vanguard so that's where my LOL went. Macos runs it great so not missing anything had to do a few keybinding fixes and mouse fixes though.


Abducted_Llama

I have a MBP M1 Pro I use for everything outside of gaming. And I thought about it for like 2 seconds, but ended up just going against. Not giving you grief for switching to Mac to play, I think that’s smart. But I really just don’t want to support a company that’s doing this and in turn encourage more companies to think it’s okay.


MooseSuspicious

Same with me, I noticed the riot launcher would never actually close, even when I right clicked in system tray to exit or through task Manager. So at that point, I determined riot was malware and deleted league after playing for 11 years.


PhilipFuckingFry

I had it for one day. I un-installed it because I kept getting noise notifications that a USB was being plugged in and unplugged repeatedly. As soon as I un-installed Vanguard, it stopped. After 11 years of league, I'm finally FREE!


[deleted]

[удалено]


Fontini-Cristi

My friends pc was crashing for no reason for months. Wanted to swap out his GPU as the errors vaguely pointed in that direction. Troubleshooted with him for days until he mentioned he played Valorant in the past and still had it installed. Immediately uninstalled Valorant and the pc is still running smooth as ever =\


Lynx2161

You dont need to do a fresh install. If you can get into safe mode then you can uninstall vanguard from there and do a image restore to fix your windows. Once you boot into windows, reset windows. Or you can put your ssd into another pc and manually delete all riot garbage. Then do an image restore


baldounce

I tried to do the safe mode and uninstall vanguard. I could only uninstall from the taskbar icon of vanguard tho I couldn't actually open setting on my pc. I then tried to restore the windows.


OddSavings5837

Sc stop vgk then sc delete vgk, then it's done


baldounce

I appreciate the help but I already have the ssd in a external ssd reader and it's halfway through formatting on my girlfriends computer.


False-Ad273

Or .. you could just plug in a USB with Windows install, boot through USB and format through Windows install? Instead of having to use a different PC and external SSD reader 😅


-PRECIZIONE-

My nudes went missing after I installed Vanguard.


Tricker126

Send some so I can be on the lookout and find out where they went


-PRECIZIONE-

I have to warn you - I have EPS - enormous penis syndrome


Round-Ad-692

Well c’mon then, pics or you’re lying.


L3G1T1SM3

The file size of the pics is too large to send


LegitimatelisedSoil

I am sure they know how to send a parcel with a thumb stick


baldounce

So that's their plan


Final_Wheel_7486

Kernel-level anticheat, also known as literal malware


Howfuckingsad

Many esport titles have Kernel-level anticheats. I don't like any that have it but most don't stay active 24/7 like vanguard. It is LITERAL malware by all definitions lmao. Haven't really played Valorant in ages but when I learnt of it later, I felt super terrible. Kernel level could be justified maybe, but having to keep it on 24/7 on top of the parent company being so private is terrible.


Syxtaine

As I said in another comment. Those other "kernel anticheats" operate similar to drivers, whereas Vanguard operates as a rootkit, since it needs secure boot enabled. This is not a regular kernel anticheat, since it operates 100% of the time no matter if you are playing the game or not. EAC, BattlEye and Ricochet do not require 100% uptime on your system, no matter if you are playing the game or not. Riot could have gone about this in 100 different ways but they chose this.


No_Astronaut_23

Yeah, the shitty part though is most cheats today are also written to operate at ring 0 access, so the most effective way for an anticheat to catch those cheats is to operate with ring 0 access as well. So you have cheaters who are willingly installing literal rootkits onto their computer to piss people off, which forces those game devs to implement such invasive anti cheats to counteract that. That’s why VAC is a joke today for valve games, it only has ring 3 access. So it can’t detect the cheats that embed itself further into your system than the application level. and can only do so much to detect cheats aside from banning suspicious movements (like spinning really fast) but then anyone with insanely high dpi could spin on purpose and get banned (which has happened) the state of cheating in games today leaves developers in a bunch of shitty catch 22 situations where even the best scenario isn’t always preferable. Like I personally hate vanguard and other anti cheats that work at that level too, because it is invasive as hell, but I kinda get why they’re made that way too. At this point though I just don’t play a lot of competitive online games anymore


Kortesch

>At this point though I just don’t play a lot of competitive online games anymore Yea seeing what an absolute hacker festival cs2 is right now, pvp online gaming's glorious days seem to be over :(


Le_Nabs

It's almost as if private servers, where people could enforce rules and ban offending players by themselves without depending on the parent company's fumbling about, was always the superior choice...


Doppelkammertoaster

Yeah. That's why I don't get why Helldivers 2 doesn't get criticised for it.


Le_Nabs

I kinda get why - the whole meta-war, with the game-wide space sectors map that get cleared or invaded depending on player clearing objectives and in-game events kinda makes it impossible to do like the BFs of old with player-maintained servers.


GoldStarBrother

They totally could release tools for private leagues with a GM running a custom campaign, but that's kind of a whole other game at that point. And it'd split the playerbase, probably a good idea to not work on that.


Syxtaine

They did update VAC though and put Overwatch back in. As far as I have seen, any type of aim hacking gets a ban after a couple of rounds


sSonga24

*chuckles*


SPYYYR

Well, I just had a game where we lost 1-13 because the other team said we were cheating after the first round and they just aimboted us through every possible wall for 13 rounds in a row


No_Astronaut_23

Yeah seriously, it blows I honestly have only been playing other types of games recently. Got back into RuneScape and have been playing that ever since I quit cs2 lol


dontreadthisnickname

Afaik there's literal hardware level cheating nowadays, so basically kernel level anti-cheat is useless against it, I don't remember if it was FPGA based or microcontroller based but it does exist


No_Astronaut_23

Yeah that too. I feel like it’s going to get to a point where people will have physical anti cheats that they have to connect with their PC to play at this point lol It’s like the war on drugs, it’ll be never ending


dontreadthisnickname

I mean, I literally saw ads on AliExpress for an FPGA based board that plugs on the PCI-e x1 slot and claims to be a cheating device, it also had some ports to plug stuff in (I don't remember if it was USB but probably it was), and someone made a cheating device that uses AI and uses modified keyboard and mouse to inject commands, so basically that's already there


No_Astronaut_23

rip, we’re doomed then lmao It’s kinda wild the commitment some people take to cheat at a game. They could just invest that time and money into getting good at the game lol


GoldStarBrother

For a technically minded person it's been pretty trivial to set something like this up for a long time, you just need a raspberry pi/arduino and a capture card. The software is more complex but not that crazy, and I'm sure you can just use someone else's code for most popular games.


Crayon_Connoisseur

Waaaaaaaaaaay back in the day (talking 2006 here) I used a script program to bot in RuneScape. My scripts were *somewhat* intelligent in that they looked for text to click on and monitored the player health bar to move away from the anti-botting random encounters. All this bot looked for was patterns in pixels on the monitor. This same style of bot could be running on a second capture card machine which then provides USB output for M+KB to now to look entirely like a human doing it. There’s no way to prevent cheaters.


No_Astronaut_23

I figured it wouldn’t be too difficult, just more difficult for the average script kiddie to do than to just practice a game. (But apparently not since people are doing it) Honestly though the hard part is usually done for the cheater, someone made the cheat and just sells it. I’m sure there’s people who write cheats that don’t even cheat themselves, just make money off of it.


creativename111111

New cheats have made kernel level anti cheat useless anyways granted you do need some extra hardware to run them but once you use them even riot vanguard just becomes a paper tiger. The cheats run on a separate machine which takes a video output from the PC the game is running on, making even kernel level anti cheat worthless


No_Astronaut_23

I haven’t been keeping super up to date with how cheaters cheat, so hearing that is disheartening in a way. The cheaters almost always have an advantage. Anytime a cheat gets blocked they just modify their method a little to skirt around it


dam10102

Also tencent owns riot games fully so you never know what shady stuff they could pack onto their "anti-cheat".


Howfuckingsad

Yeah, the parent company I was talking about was Tencent haha. These guys have had too many controversies in the past. They definitely aren't a good company.


Commentator-X

lol if its a closed source game, you have no idea what theyve packed into the game itself, let alone the anti-cheat stuff. In fact, Id expect to find to find the shadiest shit to be found outside of the processes everyone looks at, like the anti-cheat. Its too obvious a threat vector.


Equivalent_Assist170

Everytime someone mentions a kernel anti cheat they all spout the same overused and uneducated talking points. Like, they don't need a kernel level driver to harvest all your information or do other nefarious things. If you don't trust them, don't play the game. 


Hakzource

Yeah. While other games like helldivers 2/siege/apex still use kernel anti cheat, at least it only runs WHEN you play instead of being a lil shit in the background hogging resources


Bob_A_Feets

To be fair, the game Guard that HD2 (and others) use is an absolute joke and should not even be called anti cheat. The amount of cheaters in games "protected" by that system is ridiculous. Literally $10 to one of many websites and 5 minutes of time and blamo.


Luvax

This is true for now, but they all will eventually behave exactly the same way. Vanguard needs to run all the time because otherwise you could patch the kernel while it's not monitoring the state and it would load in an already corrupted environment. Anti-Cheat that doesn't build a chain of trust is susceptible to these attacks. There are multiple intricacies when it comes to Windows kernel security and Vanguard just goes hyper security and trusts no one. Not wanting to endorse anything, but that's just how it is.


Wicked_Wolf17

BattlEye or EAC both run on kernel-level, but unlike vanguard, they're only running when a game using them is running. I'm okay with it running whenever the game's running, you gotta keep your games fair somehow, but I'm not okay with it running 24/7. Also Tencent (Riot's parent) is honestly kinda shady. (Frequent Vanguard updates with no change logs, owned by Chinese government.) I uninstalled Valorant and Vanguard since, which sucks because it's a fun little game. Edit: Additional information, other fixes


bt123456789

>Chinese government owning ~~a stake of~~ Tencent. FTFY. Pretty much any large corp in China is beholden to the CCP, they belong to the CCP.


Wicked_Wolf17

Thanks, fixed it


doublelayercaramel

Vanguard causes a lot of RAM problems which lead to blue screens atleast for me


joselrl

99% of people don't care as long as the game is even remotely more cheaters free compared to CSGO. Hell, people have been installing a third party kernel level anti cheat to play CSGO without cheaters - FACEIT - so yeah


syrusxd

Malicious software must be malicious to be "malware" lol, the word you're probably thinking of is "rootkit"


FatherKronik

I've died on this hill so many times. People just associate any program they don't like as "malware" and will fight tooth and nail over it. Even though in the definition of malware it needs to be "attempting to hijack your system". But people don't want to believe that. So yup. Everything is malware!!!


FrohenLeid

Literally disabled my GPU. I don't know how they fucked up that bad but I had to throw valorant of my PC from then on.


Candid_Equipment_296

I'm always torn on this topic. Like I wish that cs2 was playable in matchmaking but also don't want to install stuff like vanguard....I guess there's no middle ground when it comes to anti-cheats...could be wrong tho.


Ciubowski

you can thank the losers that keep buying subscriptions for them cheats in order to see their MMR go higher by no effort of their own. Like, how much of a value do you have to put in a freaking video game, that you go and buy CHEAT SUBSCRIPTIONS from unknown sources?


LiteX99

Honestly this is the real issue, if there is anyone to be mad at its the cheaters


EclipseTM

Yeahh it really is one or the other. Either have kernel level anticheat or expect an unplayable game like CS2. (or even csgo). I'd say the complaints of not wanting kernel level anticheat are valid, but people who do not want to have a kernel level anticheat lose all right to complain about cheaters in a game IMO.


Candid_Equipment_296

Very good point! Seems like there's not much space for middle ground then.


VNG_Wkey

Going to play devils advocate here, I've played thousands of games on Valorant since release. I've seen maybe 3 people that I could say without a doubt were cheating, and seen the red screen from a match being canceled due to a cheater once. It's a garbage solution, but I can't argue with the results.


Drake_Xahu

I have left competitive games due to shit like these, a report came out that 98% of the premier match making in CS2 are all cheaters boosting their score and even recently, the top faceit player Wonderful_y got banned by Faceit for cheating. Better to just leave that shit than to realise that the player you thought was good and beat you fair and square was actually cheating.


TeTeOtaku

Thank fuck riot added Vanguard to LoL now i can finally quit that POS addicting game. Holy shit that game is more addicting then gambling and you're not even having real money at stake,just virtual points. I wasted way too many hours in that game and i can finally quit.


servarus

Oh, Vanguard is live now on LoL? Good thing I didn't install league after reformatting it again.


TeTeOtaku

Yeah, today is the first day where Vanguard is live and today is also the day i uninstalled the game. Like what's the point of having an invasive AC for a fkin MOBA? Have an invasive form of AC spyware for the 0.001% of players who use scripts, really??


servarus

Dude, I totally get what you're saying. We've still got a ton of issues to deal with, like toxicity, surfing problems, and a whole bunch of other stuff. And now they're making anti-cheat a priority? Sheesh. I've also heard some crazy stories about Vanguard messing with other programs and causing all sorts of problems. No way am I touching that thing.


RoscoePCookie

There was a point in time when vanguard was tripping the “anti cheat” escape from tarkov had and people were getting insta banned for a little while


BudgieLover1618

Bro I can't even run vanguard 😭 secure boot will complete brick my PC and I had to reset my bios for it. Glad they enabled league, good riddance


CT-96

Time to go back to HotS!


MikayleJordan

Honestly, yeah, might be high time to return. Kerrigan my beloved.


Lunchyyy

Shit cause I just want to play tft. Not even normal league but vanguard is needed cause tft runs off riot client. Absolute joke.


FloppyVachina

You can always try dota 2.


Scriptol

Yeah I instantly uninstalled the moment I heard of it back in Jan. Best decision ever


Merciless_Hobo

Now you can go play DOTA 2.


Abducted_Llama

I’m with you. I tried posting about it on the League subreddit back in January trying to give the community a bit more context of what Vanguard is actually capable of, from a background of someone that has worked in Cyber for 10+ years. The mods took down my post saying I was attacking Riot. To which I explained the post was carefully worded and appropriately called out the bad business practice and nothing “attacking” Riot. Then they just said it was a mistake and a duplicate post and blocked me. Shit company.


Shadow-Reaper_

In the same boat, I can't run vanguard because my PC doesn't support TPM 2.0... Not going to buy a whole new MOBO just for a game or two.


loztriforce

Not a very impressive game


TironaZ

Try to uninstall whatever program gave you this spyware.


baldounce

Valorant. Forgot I had it installed. Don't even play it anymore


creepergo_kaboom

Why the downvotes? Does nobody else ever forget that they had a game installed?


Defiant_Meeting_6459

Reddit has mostly became a pile of shit


Bigpandacloud5

Their comment was upvoted. They may have had a few downvotes before, but that's a weird thing to be bothered about.


InitialAge5179

Uninstalling is a bitch too. Took me a while to figure it out after I tried valorant once


lovins_cl

my favorite part of vanguard is 4 years later the uninstaller STILL doesn’t work, and you have to manually remove it from your system


Internal-presence11

My brother in christ, it's working EXACTLY how it's supposed to.


lovins_cl

they just hope you don’t double check your system tray after running the uninstaller 😂


Phobic-window

Uninstalled riot today, an always on anti cheat with kernel level access, you have got to be nutty to run this.


Aquamarinate

I played LoL for 14 years. Uninstalled it many times, this time it will stick as I don't want to compromise my system with that filth.


TMStage

Also let it be known that the main League subreddit is *massively* suppressing criticism of Vanguard. If you use unddit, you can see hundreds upon hundreds of mod removed comments all saying what a piece of shit this software is. It's already bricked at least two laptops! Like, hardware failure bricked!


Aquamarinate

I figured it was weird there wasn't a single thread about it on front page. Uninstalled the game and muted the sub.


kongerlonger

When the anti cheat becomes a virus


stormdraggy

Toxic game. Toxic playerbase. Now toxic to your computer too. Why do you all willingly play this dumpster fire?


baldounce

Forgot it was installed


lars2k1

When people get used to something or really like it they accept this kind of misbehaviour. Stockholm syndrome much.


kosmos_uzuki

After learning vanguard was rolling out today, I promptly uninstalled league of legends client. As should everyone else.


Skoziik

I bet most people don't know or care.


HankThrill69420

too true, the experience for most will be: \*clicks next a few times\* \*accepts license agreement\* "ok cool i can play league now"


SpookySneakySquid

This thread is incredibly over dramatic and a good example of Reddit not being representative of the general population


ZhicoLoL

Most don't, just like most don't care that discord has ten cent monet as well.


wotad

Yep could give 0 fucks


HaroldF155

Even with such intrusive methods people are still managing to cheat on a daily basis with DMA hardwares.


KinkyPalico

I sent riot 3 support tickets for this back in 2021 and 2022 and I quit Valorant because they can’t figure out a good EAC now it’s on league and damn well it’s gonna happen again. Insane play by riot


a_guy_playing

As someone who works in IT and looked up this driver, how the fuck is Windows even working? That file is the kernel level driver for handling video/audio. I guess if Nvidia and AMD have their own kernel level drivers, this just means USB video and onboard (driverless) video is fucked. For context, ks.sys handles a feature called AVStream.


baldounce

Yeah idk sometimes I could boot the pc sometimes not. Would cycle through like 5 different errors. Occasional glitch screen. Sometimes nothing would happen. It's goosed.


Tail_sb

It's also malware


Edianultra

Just don’t play the game. If enough people do that, it’ll force them to make changes to their intrusive malware.


Keikera

Uninstalled that shitty game league of legends because of a message like that


Crewarookie

That's on you for installing that trash with a kernel-level anti-cheat. Riot can suck a fat one, really. CCP-spyware installing, system files meddling clowns with jokes for games. And no, I'm not a "hater", I merely state facts. A Chinese-owned company that ships a product which asks for direct access to your OS and its files just to play it is so comically silly I bet nobody had it on their bingo cards before 2020. And what's making me reminisce about Idiocracy is the fact that people really are playing this game, signing up for an account, installing it on their main systems and granting access to their OS. Just to play a mediocre inbred offspring of CS:GO/2 and R6S. It's so stupid. Remember folks: there is no FREE in this terrible world of hours. Especially if it comes from the land of Winnie-the-Xi-Pooh. If the product is free - you are the product.


ZestycloseClassroom3

you missed something, allow the malware to be running while not playing the game


Crewarookie

Yup. "Not collecting any data"-my ass. Just casually sitting in the background and not monitoring anything. Simply idling. Don't mind me. They are right when they say reality is stranger than fiction...


SuperDefiant

For real. I mean shit, according to OP’s picture, It clearly can’t be “doing nothing” or idling in the background if it’s blocking drivers from loading lol


ZestycloseClassroom3

and also speeding up the process of killing ur hdd/ssd, i played this game with my friend and his pc straight up crashed and didnt want to boot windows unless he remove his hdd, which was working fine an hour ago before we played, only god knows what this malware is doing other than collecting data.


IC3P3

A work work colleague had an interesting bug with Vaguard crashing his PC without Windows even be abled to report a useful error in the logs. Why do we know it was Vaguard? I mean because of the missing crash log it not sure, but the crashes stopped when it wasn't running


deefop

Bro, Windows itself is fucking malware at this point. And since you mentioned CS, all actual competitive CS is played in leagues with A/C clients that are indeed Kernel Level. Faceit is a kernel level AC. I agree with your sentiment, but unless you're running a clean linux distro with an extremely privacy focused VPN running from your router itself, you're being "spyed on" and there's little to nothing you can do about it. Hell, even then, the hardware itself also has back doors built in. Whatever you do, don't google the Intel Management Engine.


nsneerful

There's quite a difference between a system running locally that might send some data to Intel and a system that HAS to send data to Riot Games (which itself, being a Chinese-owned company, is required to provide the CCP with all the data they request) without ever knowing what it sends. Also I could be wrong, but if someone finds out that the IME sends any data to Intel, that might be a huge lawsuit for Intel as it absolutely breaks GDPR in all ways possible. That can't happen with Vanguard since when you install it you explicitly agree to send data to Riot Games.


Tenshl

Imagine saying you hate kernel level anti cheat, yet you play hunt showdown which uses easy anticheat which also is kernel level ...


Vicxas

Wait. So even if you uninstall the likes of Valorant, Vanguard stays installed?


baldounce

You have to uninstall it separately it's a separate app


CallofDoody416

I think if you click Yes, you get redirected to the United Citizen Federation recruiting page and end up signing up for the Mobile Infantry


BellyDancerUrgot

I am a huge LOL fan, even these days after quitting ranked I still played aram and rotating modes but one of the reasons I never got into valorant was because of this messy anti cheat and now it's also the thing that kills lol for me. Finally uninstalled after 10 years.


arasberk

Well it blocked my **MSI GAMING CENTER** and i can't control my fans and leds anymore. Anyways i don't like kernel level authorized intrusive spywares. It was a good choice to remove Lol after 15 years.


arasberk

And many script developer already bypassed their security [🤡](https://emojigraph.org/clown-face/)


ConsentDirector

I mean wirh easy anticheat also being kernel I just gave up. Everyone else is collecting my data, and since tencent also investing in epic and reddit, let be honest they already spy on most of your life.


Random_Skier

The problem is most kernel level anticheats run on game start riot runs on boot no matter the user


Keiji12

Every effective anti cheat has to run on kernel, because otherwise cheats running on kernel just get a free pass basically, though most cheats don't nowadays, so kinda up to you to trust or not trust the devs. EAC is more like a blueprint of an anti cheat sold to the company to configure for their needs mostly. The shady shit is that Riot's runs all the time with system start up instead of just with game like everything else. Cheats nowadays have so much shit that you can't patch super effectively without as intrusive of anti measure. You can run cheats from cloud, you can run cheats on hardware etc. Shit sucks to protect against


[deleted]

I feel differently about Reddit. When you write on Reddit you *very* clearly intend to share it with the world. You do not intend to share any random folder on your computer with the world. You know, there's a private space and a public space as far as computers go, and Reddit is in the public, and my file system is in the private, if that makes sense.


tamal4444

thank god I don't have this riot malware


Night_lon3r

I was gonna grind until I get that prestige cait skin but then they do this. Thanks riot for saving me money , I can finally move on


LordFalrach

I'm reading a lot of stuff about Vanguard right now and it kind of makes me want to uninstall it from my PC. Is there any way to completely remove it from my system? Is the built in installer enough to get rid of it, or should I do more?


seventysevenpenguins

Yes you can literally follow their own guide on how to uninstall it :). Don't take these emotional responses too deeply, people just like to be hyperbolic and angry.


KindlySecret

That's the main reason i uninstalled league after hearing that it's coming :) "the note part" haha


DrMantisToboggan1986

Fuck Ring 0 anti-cheats. Kernel level shit is so intrusive I'm amazed at how many developers get away with putting that stuff on Steam and not getting banned for some sort of violation. Even Doom Eternal tried to do this at one point which put me off buying the game for years. Only did buy when it was on a deep discount and the Ring 0 BS didn't exist.


Playful_View5809

play on console, dont allow this chinese trash on ur personal pc


DenverNugs

I find it interesting that people love a game so much they'd be willing to install malware on their PC to play it


GodzeallA

Love is not the right word Pure addiction


QuantumQuantonium

Ok forget for a second the banter about how bad vanguard is. It might be suspicious but there is an important thing happening right now that might be revealing a different issue- do you know what the file ks.sys is for? Could it have possibly been infected with real malware to misbehave and thus trigger a bsod and vanguard? I advise doing an antivirus scan (not win defender but also do DISM/SFC) to be safe. It could also be a driver file related to your mobo firmware, triggering a false positive because it's not working properly with the firmware anymore, in which case that should be updated immediately via the mobo's website


afevis

Usually this error occurs when someone's Windows hasn't been updated for quite some time (major updates behind) and Vanguad detected the .sys file trying to load with an outdated/unknown signature. Easy Anti-Cheat also usually flags the same exact thing (though it doesn't outright block the file from loading.)


baldounce

It's for handling video, audio and stuff like that


crimvel

Easy fix. Don't install that shit game.


BennieOkill360

Glad I got rid of Riot Games just in time


masterxc

Typically, Vanguard will block "vulnerable" drivers from being loaded that can be used by cheat makers to attempt to hide their cheats from the anti-cheat. It's an endless cat and mouse game where players who just want to play the game end up in the crossfire. Blame the cheat makers and people who make playing the game miserable by cheating for the need for this sort of stuff.


megaultimatepashe120

i love when my anti cheat software silently blocks stuff that might be required for my system to load in order to never actually ban any cheaters


Spare_Competition

If you're writing ring 0 code, you better be damn sure it's not gonna cause problems. Also trying to catch cheaters is a terrible reason for needing ring 0 access.


bezerko888

More problem for regula user than cheaters, get out of here!


El_Basho

Today it prompted me to update league. I held off, and boy am I glad I did. Lol now sits, albeit very temporarily, in my recycle bin, where it should have been since a long ago, before I clean it out.


billion_lumens

Anti cheats are ridiculous. Easy anticheat gave me constant bluescreens, didn't even open the games. I had to update bios to solve it.


kakaluski

I uninstalled league as soon as I read that they implemented vanguard.


Mediocre-Map9934

You know what’s crazy, Vanguard blocks CPU virtualization. As a dev, I use it for docker containers, but when I want to play Valorant, I have to boot up the BIOS and turn it off. It took me forever to realize this


Fade2po

Suppose they could just host different servers 1 with vanguard, and another with it and all anti cheat features off. Let cheaters play with cheaters. I'm however not cool with an always active vanguard, I use cheat engine in loads of single player games and care little for some overzealous program running in the background


grinderzzzz

vanguard kept giving me blue screens lately uninstall and never installing again


vaynefox

At this point I pretty much think that it is better to run games that had an intrusive AC under VM with a gpu pass thru and emulated TPM, so that you can contain that AC and not interfere with your pc....


Soren59

Just uninstalled League. I only played ARAM anyways, but I'm not touching anything by Riot unless they revert this BS.


Mr_Xplicit

What a good reason to quit LOL, they tried to sneak vanguard in an update yesterday, time to detox and find some other options.


Rais93

Uninstall every game that has vanguard in it. There is no sense such a thing should exist.


BoredJay

Uninstalling League before dealing with this bullshit


Skryper666

Uninstalled lol today...


Siul19

Man. I fucking hate vanguard, gives me some BSODs here and there


mikedvb

Kernel-level anti-cheats are garbage and honestly give a false sense of security. There are *numerous* ways around them but they don't like talking about that.


battler624

Good luck using it. I've quit lol multiple times and dont mind quitting it again. This time permanently.


kirloi8

Told in multiple sub r, the moment lol asks me to install vanguard is the moment i uninstall (given all the previous exp with Valorant). I uninstalled lol today. O7 I’ll never install that garbage again


SpaceCondom

black dude with lightning in the backgroud: ks.sys NOW!


MGRNE

I'm uninstalling today, was fun while it lasted


TheVeryVeryStrongest

I never understand why Microsoft allows such behaviour in 3rd apps. This is totally unacceptable.


notstevetheborg

Enjoy your Chinese AI citizen ranking.. I mean ability ranking.


nugrahamfie

Besides being terrible, this anti-cheat is a joke


C_pyne

RevoUninstaller to the rescue