Questions, answered straight

What is Vera, in one sentence?#

Vera is independent proof of what was actually running on your system while you played. It records the facts and makes them inspectable. It never decides what they mean.

Is Vera an anti-cheat?#

No, and it matters that it is not. Anti-cheat exists to catch and block cheaters. Vera does the opposite job: it gives honest players a way to show they had nothing to hide. It never blocks, interferes with, or modifies anything on your machine.

Does Vera catch every cheat?#

No, and we will never claim it does. Vera shows what was observed, and some things hide from any observer. Saying so plainly is not a weakness here. It is the reason you can believe the rest of the record.

Is Vera free?#

Yes, and the core of Vera always will be. Signing up, installing the agent, and publishing your record cost nothing. Being believed on the evidence of who you actually are should not be a privilege of the people who can pay for it, so the proof stays open to everyone.

Who is actually behind this?#

A small independent team, The Vera Project. The people building it play on it, with their own public records, and no one’s name is the point. The thinking ships next to the thing it explains: the blog says why something was built, the collector page shows exactly what the agent does, the forum’s moderation log shows every call we make. Judge the builders the way Vera invites you to judge any player: by the record, not the résumé.

What is the Field Guide?#

Vera’s public reference: plates for games, anti-cheats, kernel drivers, and background processes, each one saying plainly what the thing is, how deep it reaches into your system, and what a record can and cannot show about it. Every claim traces to the public record or it is not on the plate. It exists so the next argument about a driver or an anti-cheat can end with a citation instead of a vibe.

under the hoodThe driver watch list is built on the open BYOVD record (LOLDrivers and the vendors’ own advisories), and every plate carries its sources and a cite-this-entry block.

Can’t a determined cheater just bypass it?#

Some can, sometimes. Every way of observing has limits, and we refuse to pretend ours do not exist. But Vera was never built to win an arms race. It was built so the honest player has a record to point to the day they get accused. Catching the guilty is anti-cheat’s job. Believing the innocent is ours.

under the hoodObservation is read-only and has a defined surface; an adversary operating below it may not appear. That is exactly why a Vera record is evidence for a human to weigh, never an automated verdict.

Could the record be faked, or quietly edited later?#

That is the part we engineered hardest against. Records are signed at the source and append-only: written once, never rewritten. The public page renders straight from the sealed record, so an edit after the fact would not survive. You do not have to take our word for it. You can inspect it yourself.

under the hoodSigned at capture, written to immutable storage, every finding traceable to the raw observation it came from. Tampering breaks verification.

A flagged driver showed up. Does that mean someone cheated?#

No. A thing being present is not proof it was used for harm, and good is not a crime. Capture cards, fan controllers, and honest monitoring tools load the same kind of driver a cheat might. Vera shows the fact with its context attached and leaves the call to people who have the context to make it. It will never call you a cheater.

under the hoodThe real watch is for BYOVD: a legitimately signed but vulnerable driver carried in to pry open the kernel. Vera reads the full signing chain, not just signed-or-not. A match is a question for a human, never a conviction.

Why would I trust the agent enough to install it?#

You should not have to trust it, and we mean that. The collector page holds evidence we did not author: a public sandbox’s recording of what the installer actually did on a clean Windows machine, the decompiled list of every Windows API in the shipping code, and the installer’s SHA-256 fingerprint tying the two together. There is also a hostile-analyst prompt to paste into your own AI, instructing it to try to prove the collector can steal your data and to refuse to reassure you. Vera never enters that conversation.

under the hoodSeven declared native APIs in the shipping binaries. The calls a keylogger, screen grabber, or credential thief would need appear nowhere, which you can check yourself with ilspycmd and a grep.

The collector evidence pack →

Will the agent slow my game down or trip an anti-cheat?#

It reads lists, about once a second: the running programs (the same list Task Manager shows), the loaded drivers, the integrity settings. That is the whole job. It runs in plain user mode with no kernel driver, injects nothing, hooks nothing, and never reaches into a game’s process or memory. The behaviors an anti-cheat hunts for are exactly the behaviors the agent does not have.

under the hoodRead-only enumeration through standard Windows APIs. The only process handle it requests is the most limited query handle Windows offers: enough to read a name and a path, never memory.

Honestly, is this spyware?#

No, and we understand why you ask. Vera reads what software was present: the names of running processes, the loaded drivers, your system’s integrity settings. It does not read your keystrokes, your screen, your files, your messages, or your network traffic. It can see that a browser was open. It can never see what you typed into it. The smallest footprint that still makes a record mean something.

What can someone actually learn from my profile?#

That a game like Fortnite ran during a window, and when it started and stopped. That Discord or OBS was open. Which kernel drivers were loaded, and whether they are signed. That is the shape of it. Not your gameplay video, not your chat, not your files, not your screen. In short: Vera sees what software was present, not what you did with it.

What on my profile is public?#

All of it, and that is by design, permanently. Your profile is public, every session is part of the open record, and there is no private tier and no per-session hide, ever. That openness is the entire point: a record you could quietly curate would not prove anything. Nothing is held back from you, and nothing is held back from anyone who comes to look.

Can I delete my account?#

Yes, any time. Deleting your account is the one control that covers everything, and that is deliberate: there is no hiding a single awkward session, because a record you could quietly curate would stop proving anything, but walking away whole is always yours. When you delete, the personal information tied to you is deleted or de-identified, except the little a legal obligation requires us to keep.

How do I get started?#

It depends on where you play. On PC, sign up with your email, install the agent on Windows, and play: your record builds itself from each session. On console, where there is no agent, your record is the gameplay clips you share. Either way, your profile goes live the moment you have something on it. The full PC walkthrough lives on the How It Works page.

I play on Mac or Linux. Anything for me?#

Not the agent, today. It is Windows-only, and we would rather say so plainly than promise a port we have not built. The rest of Vera is still open to you: an account, shared clips, the Field Guide, The League. The system record is the part that waits.

How does someone actually check my record?#

They just look. Your record sits at a permanent address, public by default, for anyone curious enough to come find it: a teammate, an opponent, a tournament admin, a scout. You never have to hand over a link or plead your case. And your own dashboard shows you the same record they see, so nothing about you is hidden from you, and nothing extra is held back from them.

I’m not a pro or a streamer. Is Vera for me?#

Yes. If you compete, and you have ever wanted to be believed when you say you played it straight, this is for you. Fame was never the entry fee. The record works the same for a Tuesday-night lobby as it does for a stage.

Can my kid use Vera?#

At 13 and up, yes, with you involved. Anyone between 13 and the age of majority needs a parent or guardian who knows about it and consents. And family here is a first-class fact, not a workaround: a parent and child who are both members can have that tie registered, so it shows plainly on both profiles once both are public. A child’s profile stays private until their guardian opens it.

Is there somewhere to talk with other players?#

Yes. The League is Vera’s forum, in four rooms: introductions, the games themselves, the product, and the Field Guide. Anyone can read it. Posting uses your Vera handle, because here you stand behind what you say. Moderation is public too: every action lands in an open log with the rule it cites. And the Discord, linked in the footer, is where the live back-and-forth happens.

What is the thing hovering in the corner of the page?#

That is Margin, the field companion. Ask it anything about Vera and it answers from the same public pages you could read yourself, or walks you to the right one. It is not allowed to invent a fact about Vera, and it never judges a player. It is also the quickest way to hand the team a thought: an idea, a bug, or a “this looks wrong about me.” Real people read those.

I play on console. Can I use Vera?#

Yes. There is no agent to install on a console, so your record is the gameplay you choose to show: clips you upload become part of your public profile. Capture a moment on your PlayStation or Xbox, and share it. Console support is built phone-first, because that is where you already have your captures.

How do I share a clip?#

Capture the moment on your console, open it on your phone, and upload it on the Submit page. It is built phone-first, so the whole thing takes a few taps. When you upload, you can name the game and the moment, so the clip still means something the day you look back on it.

Are my clips public?#

They show on your profile publicly by default, and you stay in control. You can turn clip display off in your profile settings, and a clip only ever appears if you chose to share it. Your clips are yours: shown because you decided to show them, never because anything was taken.

Who can download my clips?#

Only you. Anyone can watch what you have chosen to show, but the original file is yours alone to take back, and that is enforced on the server, not hidden behind a missing button. A public video can always be screen-recorded, and we will not pretend otherwise. What we control is that Vera itself never hands your file to anyone but you.

under the hoodThe download route mints a short-lived presigned URL only after the signed-in viewer is verified as the profile’s owner. There is no anonymous path to the original object.

Can I keep Vera on my phone?#

Yes. You can add a Vera shortcut to your home screen that opens straight to upload, with no app store in the way. It is the fastest path from a console capture to a shared clip, and the prompt to add it shows up on your phone when you are signed in.

Someone just called me a cheater. What do I actually do?#

Point once, then let the record talk. Your profile link carries every session; the session in question lists every process and driver that was loaded while it happened. If the moment deserves more, Side by Side sets two records next to each other so people can look instead of argue. The one thing you never have to do again is plead. The proof was standing there before the accusation showed up, which is the entire reason it exists.

A player I watch just got accused. How do I check?#

Go look, and look fairly. Their profile is public, and How to Read a Record walks through what each part means. Two habits keep the reading honest: weigh the pattern across weeks over any single moment, and remember that a thing being present is not proof it was used for harm. The record hands you facts. There is a real person on the other end of them, so treat what you find as the start of a fair conversation, never as ammunition.