Every cheat term, explained

Aimbot, ESP, spoofers, HWID bans and everything else you'll see on a cheat product page, in plain English.

Aim

• Aimbot — Software that moves your aim onto enemies for you. Good aimbots are configurable so the movement looks like a real player.
• Aimbot FOV — The circle around your crosshair in which the aimbot will pick up a target. A smaller FOV is subtler and looks more human.
• Smoothing — How gradually an aimbot moves your aim. High smoothing drifts onto targets like a human; low smoothing snaps instantly.
• Bone / hitbox selection — Which part of the body the aimbot aims at: head, neck, chest or the closest bone to your crosshair.
• Multipoint — An aimbot mode that checks several points on an enemy's body and aims at the best visible one.
• Prediction — Aiming slightly ahead of a moving target so bullets with travel time land where the player will be.
• Stickiness — How firmly an aimbot stays on a target once it has locked on.
• Target switch delay — A short pause before the aimbot moves from one enemy to the next, so it doesn't flick between targets instantly.
• Visible check — An aimbot filter that only targets enemies you can actually see, never through walls.
• Knocked check / ignore knocked — Makes the aimbot skip players who are already knocked down, so it goes for the real threats.
• Silent aim — Bullets hit the target without your crosshair visibly moving. Very strong, but easy to spot on replays.
• Triggerbot — Fires automatically the moment your crosshair is on an enemy.
• Recoil control / no recoil — Counteracts weapon kick so sprays stay on target. No recoil removes it entirely.
• No spread — Removes the random spread of bullets so every shot goes exactly where you aim.
• Legit vs rage — Legit settings are tuned to look like a skilled human player; rage settings are maximum strength and obvious.

Visuals

• ESP (extra sensory perception) — Information drawn over the game, such as boxes, skeletons, names, health and distance, usually visible through walls.
• Wallhack — Any cheat that lets you see players through walls. In practice it means the same as ESP.
• Box ESP — A rectangle drawn around each player. Corner, filled and normal boxes are common styles.
• Skeleton ESP — Lines that show each player's bones, so you can see their exact stance: standing, crouching or leaning.
• Snaplines — Lines drawn from a point on your screen to every player, so you can see where enemies are at a glance.
• Head circle / head marker — Marks each enemy's head on screen so you know exactly where to aim.
• View direction — A line showing which way each player is looking, so you know if they can see you.
• Off-screen arrows — Arrows at the edge of your screen pointing to enemies outside your view.
• Glow — Outlines players or items in colour, often through walls. The main ESP style in Apex Legends.
• Chams — Colours player models brightly so they stand out, often visible through walls.
• World / item ESP — Shows loot, chests, crates, traps and other objects on the map, not just players.
• Gadget ESP — Shows deployed equipment such as drones, cameras and traps. Common in Rainbow Six Siege.
• Radar — A small 2D map showing every enemy's position around you.
• Render distance — How far away ESP draws players and items. Shorter distances keep the screen clean.

Movement

• Super glide — An Apex Legends movement technique that gives a burst of speed off a mantle. Cheats can trigger it on a hotkey.
• Tap strafe — An Apex Legends movement technique for sharp mid-air direction changes. Cheats can perform it on a hotkey.

Cheat types

• Internal cheat — A cheat that runs inside the game's own process, giving access to more features.
• External cheat — A cheat that runs as a separate program and draws an overlay on top of the game.
• Private cheat — A cheat sold to a limited number of users, which keeps it under the radar for longer.
• Streamproof — The cheat's overlay does not show in OBS, Medal, GeForce or other recording and streaming software.
• Loader — The program that checks your licence key and starts the cheat.
• Config (CFG) — Your saved cheat settings, so you can load the same setup again or share it.
• Unlock all — Unlocks cosmetics such as skins on your side only, so you can use them without buying them.
• Exploit — A feature that abuses a game mechanic or bug rather than reading information.

Anti-cheat & bans

• Anti-cheat — Software games use to detect cheats, such as Easy Anti-Cheat, BattlEye, Ricochet and Vanguard.
• Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) — Epic Games' anti-cheat, used by Fortnite, Apex Legends and many other games.
• BattlEye — The anti-cheat used by Rainbow Six Siege, Fortnite (alongside EAC) and many other games.
• Ricochet — Activision's anti-cheat for Call of Duty, running at kernel level.
• Detected / undetected — Whether an anti-cheat currently recognises a cheat. It is a live status, not a permanent guarantee.
• Ban wave — Many accounts banned at once, usually after the anti-cheat adds a new detection.
• Account ban — One game account is banned. New accounts on the same PC still work, unlike an HWID ban.
• HWID (hardware ID) — Identifiers read from your PC's hardware, such as disk, motherboard, BIOS and network adapter serials.
• HWID ban — A ban on your PC rather than your account, so every new account on it gets banned too.
• Spoofer — Software that changes the hardware IDs an anti-cheat reads, so a banned PC looks like a new one.
• Cleaner — Removes the files and registry traces a game leaves on your PC, which it can use to recognise you after a ban.
• Shadow ban — You aren't told you are banned, but you are matched only with other flagged players.

Store

• Licence key — The code that activates your cheat for a set amount of time.
• Cheat status — A live label showing whether a cheat is safe to use right now: Undetected, Testing, Updating, Detected or Offline.