real-stars

Exposes fake stars on GitHub repositories using statistical anomaly detection.

As of June 2026, real-stars has 10 users and a 5.00/5 rating from 1 reviews in the Developer Tools category.

Usersno change0%
10
10
Ratingno change0%
5.00
1 reviews
Reviewsno change0%
1
Version
0.2.5
Manifest V3
90-day change · In the last 90 days this extension 1 version update, changed permissions.

History

4 snapshots

Tracking since May 12, 2026.

10.47.54.6May 12, 2026Jun 6, 2026
View as table
DateUsersRatingReviewsVersion
May 12, 20260.2.1
May 17, 20260.2.1
May 24, 202655.0010.2.5
Jun 6, 202665.0010.2.5
Now105.0010.2.5

Changelog

  • May 17, 2026
    host_permissions
    https://github.com/*, https://api.github.com/*, https://real-stars-oauth.peer-claw.workers.dev/*
    https://github.com/*, https://api.github.com/*, https://real-stars-oauth.serenatan.workers.dev/*

Permissions & access

Permissions
storageidentity
Host access
https://github.com/*, https://api.github.com/*, https://real-stars-oauth.serenatan.workers.dev/*

Screenshots

real-stars screenshot 1real-stars screenshot 2real-stars screenshot 3

About

real-stars analyzes the star history of any GitHub repo you visit and
shows how many of those stars look real, right next to GitHub's official
star count.

How it works — two independent fake-star detection signals:
• Burst detection: a sliding-window MAD (median absolute deviation)
  algorithm spots statistically anomalous spikes in the star
  timeline — the fingerprint of "bought a batch in one day".
• Per-user account analysis: samples 200 stargazers and scores
  account age, follower count, public repo count, and avatar to
  spot throwaway / farm accounts — catches "drip-fed bought stars
  from a pool of 6,000 empty profiles" that burst detection misses.
• Cross-validation: real spikes leave evidence in fork activity
  and traffic referrers (HN, Reddit, Twitter); bought stars don't.

Sign-in: one-click GitHub OAuth, no PAT setup needed.

Calibration:
Validated against StarScout's published ground truth (ICSE 2026
paper, https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.13459). Live algorithm matches
StarScout's snapshot numbers within ±3% on the test set:
  - LupusLeaks/EasyFN: 86.5% fake (StarScout: 83.5%)
  - microsoft/vscode:   1.5% fake (StarScout: 1.27%)
  - torvalds/linux:     1.5% fake (StarScout: 0.88%)

Repos under 1,000 stars get a "needs more data" badge instead of a
verdict — we'd rather under-detect than libel a real project.

Source: https://github.com/serenakeyitan/real-stars

Privacy: real-stars only reads public repo metadata via the GitHub API
using your own OAuth token. Nothing is sent to any third-party server
except a small Cloudflare Worker that exchanges the OAuth code for a
token (the token never leaves your browser after that).

Technical

Version
0.2.5
Manifest
V3
Size
35.98KiB
Min Chrome
88
Languages
1
Featured
No

Metadata

ID
dhedokmgjhemapgdkekkmkfnnmggdkca
Developer ID
u2a356dae90e50e8f1f2f16b3ed985399
Developer Email
[email protected]
Created
May 11, 2026
Last Updated (Store)
May 14, 2026
Last Scraped
Jun 6, 2026
Website

Data sourced from the Chrome Web Store · last verified Jun 6, 2026.