Valve Anti-Cheat is described as '(VAC) is an automated system designed to detect cheats installed on users' computers. If a user connects to a VAC-Secured server from a computer with identifiable cheats installed, the VAC system will ban the user from playing that game on VAC-Secured' and is a Anti-Cheat tool in the gaming software category. There are four alternatives to Valve Anti-Cheat for Mac, Windows, Linux and Web-based. The best Valve Anti-Cheat alternative is PunkBuster, which is free. Other great apps like Valve Anti-Cheat are Easy Anti-Cheat, BattlEye and SARD Anti-Cheat.
PunkBuster is Anti-Cheat system for online multiplayer games (eg Call of Duty). It keeps the cheaters out, but due to many incompatibilities (for example with Steam overlay, x64 systems, Linux systems) it also keeps many legit players out.
PunkBuster is the most popular Windows, Mac & Linux alternative to Valve Anti-Cheat.
PunkBuster is the most popular free alternative to Valve Anti-Cheat.
Easy Anti-Cheat is the industry-leading anti–cheat service, countering hacking and cheating in multiplayer PC games through the use of hybrid anti–cheat mechanisms.
Easy Anti-Cheat is the most popular commercial alternative to Valve Anti-Cheat.
BattlEye (BE) was founded by Bastian Suter in October 2004. Starting out as an external 3rd-party anti-cheat for Battlefield Vietnam, first versions were quickly released and it rapidly gained first acknowledgement.
SARD Anti-Cheat empowers game developers and publishers with advanced technologies to prevent hacking and cheating in their MMO games.
SARD Anti-Cheat is the most popular Web-based alternative to Valve Anti-Cheat.
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SARD is close to an in-house anti-cheat and is customized for each game specifically.