What is EasyAntiCheat.exe? Should EasyAntiCheat.exe be removed?

Online multiplayer games are often highly competitive. So everyone wants to get higher score and top the leaderboard.

Unfortunately, this means that some players may be tempted to use cheats to win. Cheat not only interferes with the ranking, it even disrupts the experience of other players. That's where Easy Anti-Cheat comes in.

What is Easy Anti-Cheat?

Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) is a program developed by Epic Games that is usually installed with a supported game. It prevents crooks from taking advantage of game exploitation to do things for their benefit. More specifically, EAC is not intended to detect cheat use but to prevent cheating in the first place.

If you're curious, cheats make it easy for players to level up, defeat opponents, and get in-game rewards.

What is EasyAntiCheat.exe? Should EasyAntiCheat.exe be removed? Picture 1

Epic Games mainly adapted Easy Anti-Cheat for online multiplayer games. It supports Windows, macOS, and Linux (via Proton). At the time of writing, there are no Linux multiplayer games that have support for EAC on as official support was only recently added.

How does Easy Anti-Cheat work?

The tool will start running in the background whenever you launch a game using the Easy Anti-Cheat service. You can go to the Task Manager on Windows to check if the Easy Anti-Cheat process is running.

You should see it listed as "EasyAntiCheat Launcher", as shown in the image below.

What is EasyAntiCheat.exe? Should EasyAntiCheat.exe be removed? Picture 2

While Epic Games doesn't reveal official details on how it works, there are several possibilities. This anti-cheat service accesses your files to look for unusual modifications that could indicate the use of cheats.

Technically, this anti-cheat engine detects malicious behavior caused by any file conflicts while interacting with the game and prevents the player from playing it. In other words, it prevents any illegal modifications and configuration changes that allow cheating in the game.

Which games support Easy Anti-Cheat?

Easy Anti-Cheat is included in many different games. It should be noted that you cannot install it as an anti-cheat tool for an unsupported game.

Some popular games that use Easy Anti-Cheat include:

1. Battlefield 2042
2. Fortnite
3. Apex Legends

You can check the official EAC website for a full list of supported games. Easy Anti-Cheat is a popular anti-cheat tool used in multiplayer games.

Is it possible to install and uninstall Easy Anti-Cheat separately?

Easy Anti-Cheat is installed with the supported game. So you don't have to install it for any of the supported games manually. However, you can choose to uninstall if you want.

But uninstalling is not as simple as any other program. So you will have to find the setup executable that was installed by the game.

If you go to Program Files (x86) > EasyAntiCheat, you will find the setup file. You need to double-click it like you would for the installation file.

As shown in the screenshot below, you get to select the game and then repair, uninstall or install it.

What is EasyAntiCheat.exe? Should EasyAntiCheat.exe be removed? Picture 3

If you try to install any game that supports EAC, the game will automatically install Easy Anti-Cheat if you have removed it. Once installed, Easy Anti-Cheat does not need to be reinstalled for other games that support Easy Anti-Cheat.

Should the Easy Anti-Cheat process be stopped?

The Easy Anti-Cheat process runs in the background. So it won't bother you while playing games. It does not consume significant system resources, so there is no significant impact on performance.

While you can stop the process in the task manager, doing so will mean you won't be able to play the game anymore.

There are several anti-cheat tools out there. Some of these options don't work as you expect.

However, Easy Anti-Cheat seems to strike a balance between being a strict anti-cheat service while giving gamers the least amount of hassle.

Marvin Fry

Update 02 December 2021