EA app vs UltimateAntiCheat

EA app is Electronic Arts’ game platform for Windows and Mac, replacing Origin on those systems. It lets users collect games, see what friends are playing, and find new EA releases. Linking an EA Account with supported platforms can import friends lists and help users play together. The app is required to play EA games on PC launched through Steam or Epic, and logging in requires an EA Account ID and password. It updates automatically at login unless an update launches while the app is already running. Windows requires a 64-bit PC with Windows 10 or 11; Mac requires macOS 10.15.8 or later. Other operating systems are not supported. The app has a free plan; EA Play costs $5.99 a month and EA Play Pro costs $16.99 a month. EA Play includes a game collection, select new-release trials of up to 10 hours, monthly rewards, and a 10% digital-purchase discount. Pro includes premium editions of select new games on day 1, a premium-edition game collection, and the same discount.

UltimateAntiCheat is an open-source usermode anti-cheat project for Windows, described by its maker as an educational reference rather than commercial software. Its listed checks cover memory integrity, manually mapped and unsigned modules, debugger activity, process creation, and handles opened to a protected process. Prevention options include remapping protected sections, limiting certain new threads, hiding threads from debuggers, and applying mitigation policies. A client-server option can send a heartbeat to clients every minute; networking can be switched on or off in settings. The maker says the project avoids file-system scanning and instead checks byte patterns in processes that are already open or created while it runs. The README recommends integrating it into a game or other software as source code or a static library, rather than using a standalone DLL. It is written in C++ and supports CMake. A hybrid kernelmode and usermode approach is available, but users must supply or make their own driver. Settings are compiled into the program, and some features need newer Windows versions. The project uses AGPL-3.0, and the README says projects using its code must also be open source.