Hello, so I'm just gonna jump right into this. I have noticed lots of misconception with hacked clients and 'hackers' in minecraft. It kinda bothers me because often 'hackers' might get banned, for say reach. When thats not even a hack. Or people say, oh I don't even know how to hack minecraft. You don't 'hack' it, installing a hacked client is literally easier then installing a texture pack.
What is a hacked client? The typical hacked client you see say when you're fighting someone is a pre-made client that is uploaded to a minecraft hacks/mods website that is public for people to download and install. People often think that the 'hackers' are recording minecraft. And while the original person that made the client did need to use code, the people using the client aren't. The clients basically are a mod, once installed and you get into game one of your keyboards keys becomes a binding to open up a HUD like below

You click on the selected hacks you want, or often if you do .bind (hack) (key) you can set a key-bind. For example .bind KillAura k. Most hacked clients are VERY user friendly. There is another type of client that I would almost call hacking. It's called a GhostClient. This are very hard to detect both through a servers anti cheat, and watching the person playing using the hacks. These are often used for YouTube videos, they want to pass themselve off as skilled but don't want the hacked client to be obvious, there's usually a second launcher and control panel outside of minecraft that the player controls the client through.
Common misconceptions: My biggest pet peeve about hack accusations is when someone says 'Oh they have an insane range hack' I promise you they don't. Why? Because it simply doesn't exist. The little slider you see in a hacked client called 'reach' or 'range' or when you see someone hitting you from '6' blocks away, that's called reaction time. The hacked client creates an AI that detects when there is a player close enough to hit them. This AI trys to start attacking as soon as possible. So when you turn that little slider up for reach its really the amount of blocks until the client detects the player and starts attacking. Plus once that slider is often pass 5.2 blocks the hits don't register due to anti cheat. Another is when people say 'I could never hack minecraft' Well its really easy, I am not going to tell you how to install one, but basically when you download the hacked client it comes in a little zip folder just drag and drop that into a certain folder in minecraft and boom you got a client.
Ip scramblers/different locations/Endless alts: As IP bans are a thing the hacked clients want to get around this. What they do is each time you log onto minecraft it has you client connect to a different host client server each time, maybe one day it's in North America, the next it's off the coast of New Zealand. Some hacked clients even let you set your IP address, but it needs to be a real address that you can connect to. Another thing that also makes 'hackers' hard to ban is the fact the clients often let them makes literally endless amounts of alts for free in a mater of seconds. Yes I know many of you won't believe, just quickly search up for yourself a hacked client with the ip feature, but only test it in single player
Kill aura: Kill aura is often the hack confused for 'reach' What it does is reacts to whenever a player is within a set number of blocks you choose from you. Once it see them it starts auto attacking for you from anywhere of 1 cps to 20 cps. Sometimes the KillAura has aimbot but often not as you don't need aimbot anymore to hit behind you.
.Legit That is very unlikely asking a player to do that will work now. Thats becuase .legit doesn't do anything. It use to in a few clients but now there is a hack in the HUD. A better thing to have them say would be .help or .bind Plus if they don't say it doesn't even mean their hacking, they might feel their above you and just not speak or not even see what your saying.
All in all that's what I needed to say, kinda just bothers me how little people know about hacked clients yet are so quick to call hacks. Please let me know if I messed up as I am sure I made a mistake somewhere, I'm always looking to improve!