Frequently asked questions

AACGUARD is a free anti-cheat scanner for Counter-Strike community servers (CS2, CS:GO and CS 1.6). A player runs it on their own PC; it looks for traces of cheat software, gives a verdict of CLEAN, SUSPICIOUS or CHEAT DETECTED, and uploads the report so the server's admins can see the evidence.

Official matchmaking is protected by Valve's own anti-cheat, but community servers usually only have server-side plugins, which see what a player does in the game, not what runs on their PC. AACGUARD adds a look at the PC itself, on request and with the player's knowledge.

Yes. Scanning, AACGuard Live, scan reports and appeals are free. AACGUARD PRO is optional: it adds cosmetic extras (badges, an animated name, profile and server themes), Fresh Start and more daily uploads. PRO never changes how scans are scored.

Full scans and AACGuard Live for CS2, CS:GO and CS 1.6 (Steam and non-Steam builds); AACGuard Live for other Valve games such as Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead and Half-Life; and cheat detection for FiveM, RedM, Minecraft, Roblox and Garry's Mod.

AACGUARD is developed by Raul-Daniel Pelea, the author of the AACGUARD technical report, which is published openly with a DOI on Zenodo and indexed on Google Scholar.

No. Every release is checked on VirusTotal (0 detections for the published builds), the SHA-256 hashes are listed on the Trust Center so you can confirm your file is the original, and how the scanner works is documented in the technical report.

No. AACGUARD runs in user mode like a normal program and installs no kernel driver. It reads what is running and what Windows recorded; it does not inject into, modify or write to any game, so it is designed to be safe next to VAC.

Most of the Windows records a scan reads, such as Prefetch and AmCache, can only be read by an administrator. The rights are used to read those records, not to change your system.

The scan report: your SteamID and name, the verdict and score, the scan log with each finding, the server you play on, a partly masked IP address and a one-way hardware fingerprint (hashes, never serial numbers) used against ban evasion. Your documents, photos, passwords, saved logins and file contents are never uploaded, except game config files identified as cheat configs.

Uploaded scans have their own page with the verdict and findings, and AACGuard Live statuses appear on the Live page. Public pages hide your Windows account name and other personal names in file paths, and mask device serial numbers and e-mail addresses.

Yes. You can ask for your data to be deleted by e-mail at [email protected]. The Privacy Notice and the GDPR page explain your rights and how long data is kept.

A full scan checks 22 evidence sources and runs roughly 190,000 checks. On most PCs it finishes in under 20 seconds.

No. A full scan only runs when you press Start or Restart. While the app is open, AACGuard Live checks what is running, but it never reads history.

CLEAN means nothing points to cheating. SUSPICIOUS means there are traces worth a closer look but not enough independent evidence. CHEAT DETECTED means several independent findings point to cheat software with enough weight to pass the threshold. Every verdict comes with a score and the findings behind it.

Not on its own. A file name that only sounds like a cheat can never produce CHEAT DETECTED by itself. The verdict looks at the total score and how many separate detections there are, and a three-stage trust model lowers the weight of legitimate software.

Windows keeps records of programs that ran, so old traces can still appear. They count less the older they are, and cheats for a different game are shown but not counted for the game the scan was for.

Open your scan page, press "Appeal this verdict", sign in with the same Steam account and explain what happened, with up to four screenshots. Every appeal is reviewed by a person. You can also report a single wrong finding from the app with "Report false positive".

You can upload 5 scans a day, or 10 with PRO. You can always run a scan without uploading it.

While AACGUARD runs, Live checks every minute what is running on the PC, and every 30 seconds what is running with the game while CS2, CS:GO, CS 1.6 or another Valve game is open. Your status is shown on the public Live page. A status only gets worse during a session.

Yes. Turn Live off in the tray menu; it comes back on when AACGUARD restarts. To stop it completely, choose Exit in the tray menu and turn off Start with Windows.

A 10–30 second check of what is running right now, started from the Pre-match check button. It creates a share link you can send to an admin before a match.

English, Romanian, French, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

Ask players to scan before matches and send you the scan link or a pre-match check link. You can look up any player's scan history by SteamID on the home page. The guide for server owners explains a fair process step by step.

Open Server list, choose Add server, enter your server's address and put the short verification token into your server's hostname. Once verified you can manage the server's page: description, tags, banner, website, Discord and TeamSpeak.

No. AACGUARD provides evidence; your admins decide what happens on your server.