StarHater

About

StarHater hides star counts, like counts, repost counts, and other engagement metrics on the web — so you can judge content on its own merit instead of its popularity.

Engagement signals (stars, likes, reposts, fork counts) nudge you toward what's already popular. They make a 50,000-star repo feel "better" than an unknown one before you've even read a line of code. They make a viral tweet feel more credible than a thoughtful reply. StarHater removes those numbers from your view so
 you can read, compare, and decide for yourself.

What it does out of the box

StarHater ships with presets for the sites where these signals are loudest:

- GitHub — hides repository star counts and fork counts
- GitLab — hides repository star counts and fork counts
- X / Twitter — hides like counts and repost counts on tweets

Each preset can be toggled on or off independently from the popup.

Add your own rules for any site

Found a counter on another site that bothers you? Open the popup, paste a URL pattern (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/*) and a CSS selector for the element you want hidden, and StarHater will request permission for that host and hide it on every visit. Rules sync across your signed-in browsers.

How it works

- Counts are hidden with visibility: hidden, not removed — so page layout stays intact and nothing reflows around the missing element.
- Works on single-page apps: rules re-apply automatically when the URL changes without a full page load.
- Permissions are requested per site, only when you add a rule for it. The extension does not request broad host access by default.
- Open source (MIT) — source at https://github.com/tai2/star-hater

Who it's for

- Developers tired of judging libraries by their star count
- Anyone who wants to read social media without the popularity-contest framing
- People doing focused research who'd rather not be steered by crowd signals

Install it, forget the numbers, think for yourself.