A day we expected to come but now Riot Games have formally announced that their Vanguard kernel-level anti-cheat is coming to League of Legends, and so it will make it unplayable on Linux. This is the same tech they use in VALORANT, which is also unplayable on Linux due to it.
This news was confirmed in their recent developer video below at about 12:43, mentioning it will happen in either late February or early March:
Direct Link
Speaking on Reddit, one of their team mentioned "We'll get some more info about Linux for you all soon, it's not something i know the answer to off the top of my head and I want to make sure I talk with the team and get you the right info.", and in a previous comment they mentioned Vanguard won't be used in the macOS version.
However, a different Riot staff member seemed to make it clear Linux support won't be happening in reply to a user asking about playing it in Wine: "No unfortunately not. From a security point of view supporting WINE would be like having a bank vault at the top of Nakatomi Tower then installing a doggy door in it.".
Considering that to play it on Linux you need to run the Windows version through Wine, there's no way they're going to roll out Vanguard into the Windows client and just let Linux get off without it. So I fully expect it to become unplayable in the next couple of months.
Seems like it's time for League of Legends players on Linux to finally swap over to Valve's Dota 2, which has full Native Linux support.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: Purple Library Guy[quote=Purple Library Guy]Quoting: CybolicI've said this since the Celine Dion rootkit fiasco: rootkits should not be legal and I don't understand how they still are.Come to that I'd be willing to bet there are laws in at least some countries that if you looked at them in that context you'd think, "Hang on, doesn't this actually break that law?" I mean, there's all these anti-hacker laws, many of them worded in a way their drafters didn't realize was so broad, or just defined weirdly, or both . . . this stuff probably falls afoul of some of them if you take the wording seriously, it's just most law enforcement pretend that's not what the law says because you can't go around putting rich corporations in jail for doing business, even if that business is crime.
Quoting: CybolicI've said this since the Celine Dion rootkit fiasco: rootkits should not be legal and I don't understand how they still are.
Good question some internet searching settles me on.
USA it is only non-hacking when you've clearly placed it in your EULA together with its level of access root.
The computer is quite often a computer "used in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce or communication" and thus a protected computer.
In the EU I would advice to stay out of educational games, because anti-cheat might trip of their "cyber resiliance laws", which would suddenly require a certification whose requirements they will never meet(white box security audits).
Quoting: dubigrasuQuoting: PyreticI was asking how efficient is in terms of combating cheating in whatever form. Is Valorant cheaters free, or at least is cheating significantly reduced compared with other AC software, so much so that is worth (for Riot) the public backlash?Quoting: dubigrasuHow good is Vanguard compared with other AC software out there? Is that efficient on Valorant?
If you're talking about performance, Valorant runs fine with it on.
If you're talking about security, you can circumvent the anti-virus (and most other kernel-level software) with a Windows VM.
And as a side note, what other game (if any) is using it?
Here's a video about just that very subject! (Regarding the effectiveness combating cheating in any form) It's a long one.
https://youtu.be/RwzIq04vd0M?si=WopAqHRbneJSUqxe
(TL'DW, there are plenty of other methods which can be used to bypass the type of anti cheat which is used, which vary in terms of ease and cost on behalf of the cheater)
Last edited by R3BiRtH on 12 January 2024 at 4:40 pm UTC
Quoting: BlackBloodRumI have to ask, how do people justify allowing a video game absolute total control over their computer at the kernel-level?Well, speaking about secure, in windows drivers can easily run in kernel mode, vanguard is the smallest of your problems, especially from a bigger company like Riot games.
How does one justify that is a good thing to have? It is a rootkit.
Regardless if you use Windows, Linux or the other one it just sounds like a bad idea. I can't help but feel the reason these companies won't do this for Linux is simple: They know most Linux users would reject it, and refuse to use the game anyway.
But it still begs the question, why are some people accepting of this?
Its still not a thing we should support in any form, but i work with industrial programs, and because of their crappy/often buggy drivers, license servers, etc in the background 24/7 its already a custom to not install them in my main system, because they break literally everything(many of them runs in VM, most of them in a different machine), and i can recommend the same. They can have as much access as they want of a throw away computer, and it doesn't change much... for me of course...
Peoples accept it, because they are addicted to LoL, they will play it no matter what every day for 5+ hours, and vanguard is still more trustworthy than the datagabber/malware that windows 11 is.
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