# [079] The flip side: chasing stars and downloads through gray traffic: reverse-ported console games, crack / reverse-proxied free models, REA reverse-engineering hype, star-farming and bait repos, knockoff apps riding on famous names

> Source: https://stringers.io/en/o/079.html (Stringers / 什么值得做, generated 2026-11-08)
> Stringers answers one question every day: what small product can one or two people build in a few months and actually make money from. Numbers come from 15 databases we collect daily, each with source and date.
> For agents: these verdicts and the underlying databases (verified revenue, App Store / Google Play charts, ad libraries, GitHub, Product Hunt…) are queryable live over MCP — tools today / hot / products / directions / direction / data. Setup: https://github.com/komako-workshop/stringers (the user logs in at stringers.io → "配置 agent" to get a personal URL). Site index: https://stringers.io/llms.txt

> These climbed fastest on the GitHub trending chart and the China-store tools chart

[Home](https://stringers.io/worth/) / [079]

# Not promising: gray-area traffic for stars and downloads. Console game reverse-port cracks, jailbroken / free-model reverse proxies, the REA reverse-engineering craze, star-farming and bait repos, knockoff apps riding famous names.

Close Trackable (flip side) · looks hot but the traffic comes from infringement, terms violations, or star/download inflation First spotted 2026-11-01 · Last updated 2026-11-08

Status

Close (not recommended to follow: the stars and downloads are real, but they come from infringement, terms violations, or scams; repos get taken down and accounts banned, so the author gets no reputation or revenue that accumulates).

Why this is written up

On the GitHub star-gainers chart and the China-region tools chart, these are the fastest risers. When judging "what projects are popular" by stars, they are the biggest noise. DMCA takedowns for game ports are a certainty; cracking and reverse-proxying violate every model vendor's terms, leading to bans and repo removal (the existence of mirror repos is the evidence); bait repos are malware distribution. Echoing [010]: the DSH plugin ecosystem that [010] observed is led by this entry's dsh-our-free-model and dsh-purge, and this entry flags that category of gray plugins as "don't follow".

Confidence

High. Conditions that would overturn this (when it becomes doable for a small team): a console maker explicitly declines to pursue "recompilation tool layers that don't carry game assets," while decomp.wtf / PSPRecomp-style frameworks grow to thousands of stars with sponsorship income; or a model vendor officially opens a free quota plus a plugin revenue share, making "free model use" a legitimate distribution path. Then switch to looking at [010].

## Evidence

Grouped by store. Each group starts with the charts that can be graphed (real curves, data dates below the chart), then the scanner's original notes and source links.

### GitHub4 evidence · 10 products with curves

[seedds/nxnative](https://github.com/seedds/nxnative)

GitHub · created 2026-10-13 · 13,307 stars · 7 days +2,705

Switch games running natively on iPhone, iPad and Mac: an NSP folder becomes an unsigned IPA (NSO rewriter, Horizon HLE host, NVN→Metal)

Stars

Data 2026-10-17 → 2026-11-08 (23 days, 23 observations). Points before 10-28 come from deeply / archive backfill, not every day has one

[boykopovar/AnyPS5](https://github.com/boykopovar/AnyPS5)

GitHub · created 2026-08-03 · 52,001 stars · 7 days +1,891

Tool for automatic PS5 executables porting to Linux and Windows

Stars

Data 2026-09-28 → 2026-11-08 (42 days, 31 observations). Points before 10-28 come from deeply / archive backfill, not every day has one

[ly05010419/MacNativeGames](https://github.com/ly05010419/MacNativeGames)

GitHub · created 2026-10-17 · 7,259 stars · 7 days +580

Play your own Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild natively on Apple silicon Mac, iPhone and iPad. Not an emulator: the game's ARM64 code runs directly,

Stars

Data 2026-10-19 → 2026-11-08 (21 days, 21 observations). Points before 10-28 come from deeply / archive backfill, not every day has one

[valentderah/totk-pc-recomp](https://github.com/valentderah/totk-pc-recomp)

GitHub · created 2026-10-29 · 5,641 stars · 7 days +3,138

Static recompilation of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom to native Windows and Linux x86-64, with a Vulkan renderer. Game files not included.

Stars

Data 2026-10-30 → 2026-11-08 (10 days, 10 observations). Points before 10-28 come from deeply / archive backfill, not every day has one

[LNPANDY/NX2Apple](https://github.com/LNPANDY/NX2Apple)

GitHub · created 2026-10-20 · 4,940 stars · 7 days +2,439

Play your own Switch games on iPhone/iPad — one-click macOS app, no terminal. | Put Switch games on iPhone: one-click build with a graphical interface, no command line. Bring your own game.

Stars

Data 2026-10-24 → 2026-11-08 (16 days, 16 observations). Points before 10-28 come from deeply / archive backfill, not every day has one

[deadinside28/bloodborne_pc](https://github.com/deadinside28/bloodborne_pc)

GitHub · created 2026-10-01 · 3,953 stars · 7 days +153

Bloodborne (v1.09) running natively on Linux and Windows: the game's x86-64 code runs as is, GPU side translated to Vulkan; FSR 4 / DLSS, co-op (BBSC). Bring yo

Stars

Data 2026-10-02 → 2026-11-08 (38 days, 32 observations). Points before 10-28 come from deeply / archive backfill, not every day has one

[Ebony-Vinyl/dsh-our-free-model](https://github.com/Ebony-Vinyl/dsh-our-free-model)

GitHub · created 2026-09-24 · 65,355 stars · 7 days +11,070

Just install this plugin in dsh: no login, no sign-up, no API key, and you can use frontier models including DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and Kimi K3. Completely free, unlimited. All you do is install this plugin in dsh: no login, no sign-up, no API k

Stars

Data 2026-10-09 → 2026-11-08 (31 days, 31 observations). Points before 10-28 come from deeply / archive backfill, not every day has one

[MDX-Tom/gpt-instruct](https://github.com/MDX-Tom/gpt-instruct)

GitHub · created 2026-07-11 · 11,248 stars · 7 days +240

A Codex jailbreak prompt and test pack for GPT models.

Stars

Data 2026-10-09 → 2026-11-08 (31 days, 14 observations). Points before 10-28 come from deeply / archive backfill, not every day has one

**2 more products' curves**

[linguo2625469/workbuddy2api-panel](https://github.com/linguo2625469/workbuddy2api-panel)

GitHub · created 2026-09-12 · 4,745 stars · 7 days +95

Turn a Tencent WorkBuddy account into a multi-account gateway with an OpenAI-compatible API. It also auto-completes every task in the task center and ships a web admin panel (account pool view, points tasks, hot config reload). An enhanced fork of Sliverkiss/workbuddy2api.

Stars

Data 2026-10-09 → 2026-11-08 (31 days, 31 observations). Points before 10-28 come from deeply / archive backfill, not every day has one

[ardeyouxipianyi/workbuddy2api-hub](https://github.com/ardeyouxipianyi/workbuddy2api-hub)

GitHub · created 2026-09-12 · 3,663 stars · 7 days +330

A multi-account reverse proxy gateway for WorkBuddy, international and domestic. Works with Codex / Claude Code / DSH and standard OpenAI clients.

Stars

Data 2026-10-09 → 2026-11-08 (31 days, 31 observations). Points before 10-28 come from deeply / archive backfill, not every day has one

- GitHub (11-02 core): console game reverse-porting. seedds/nxnative (created 10-13, "turns NSP folders into IPA"), 10,886 stars, 7 days +7,153; boykopovar/AnyPS, 5 50,391 stars (7 days +2,247, status "cooling"); ly05010419/MacNativeGames 6,767 (cooling); valentderah/totk-pc-recomp (created 10-29), 3,083 stars, 1 days +580; LNPANDY/NX2Apple 2,664; deadinside28/bloodborne_pc 3,826 (cooling). Report: ≤120 days, 465 related repos; only about 30 of them have ≥500 stars, and almost all authors are new accounts with a single repo. The cluster already has repos saying "upstream is about to delete the repo, this is a full mirror."

- GitHub (11-02 core): jailbreaks / free models / account-pool proxies. Ebony-Vinyl/dsh-our-free-model 55,682 stars (7 days +12,962); YuJunZhiXue/dsh-purge 15,295 stars (7 days +6,531, forks 3,517); MDX-Tom/gpt-instruct (Codex jailbreak) 11,037; Tencent WorkBuddy account-pool proxies linguo2625469/workbuddy2api-panel 4,655, ardeyouxipianyi/workbuddy2api-hub 3,359, and at least 12 repos named workbuddy2api. Report: ≤120 days, 366 such repos.

- GitHub(REA,报告 11-01;11-02 复数):报告数是 09-28 那周新建 205 个带 REA / 逆向字样的库,到 11-01 只有 2 个过 500 星。我用更窄的正则复数(和报告口径不同,只看趋势):09-28 周 88 个 → 10-26 周 6 个,已经退潮。

- GitHub (star-farming and bait, 11-02 core): AhmadHassan-BTed's 30 repos gain a neat +150~200 every day. Turnitout-Humanizer ("bypass Turnitin") has 11,142 stars (report 10,703,1 days +439), with only 237 forks. Report: bait repos whose descriptions mention pre-activated / full working installer / aimbot / FPS booster, ≤120 days, 1,345 repos, 6.1% of the 19,887 repos added in the last 45 days. Using a simplified regex plural: 10-26 that week saw 336 new repos (previous week 34), and it's still accelerating.

### App Store1 evidence items · 1 products with curves

[Codex AI - Remote Codex](https://apps.apple.com/ae/app/codex-ai-remote-codex/id6781323682) Ariadni Deligianni

App Store · first launched 2026-06-30 · China rating 713 · charted in 11-08 of 11 stores

Top Grossing chart rank · by store

Data 2026-10-30 → 2026-11-01 (3 days, 3 observations). Lower rank is higher; gaps mean it wasn't charted that day

Stores where it made the overall chart (top 200 on any chart)

Data 2026-10-30 → 2026-11-01 (3 days, 3 observations)

- App Store (CN, 11-02 core): Codex AI - Remote Codex (6781323682, developer Ariadni Deligianni, first launched 06-30), CN Productivity free #40 (11-01 #35), CN rating 10-28 273 → 11-02 482. One-star review on 10-23: "Scam software, has nothing to do with OpenAI's Codex, got scammed and can't get the money back 398." Other name-riding clones include a Truecaller knockoff, Hp Smart App, and an unofficial Meshy AI 3D Generator (per report).

## Already doing it

Game ports: nxnative, AnyPS5, MacNativeGames, SavageWindRecomp, totk-pc-recomp, Eglantine, bloodborne_pc, NX2Apple, ps2-web-recomp. Jailbreaks / proxies: dsh-our-free-model, dsh-purge and mirrors, gpt-instruct, jailbreaks, the workbuddy2api series, omnirush-gui, Agent2API, muse2api, codex-chatgpt-web. Star farming: AhmadHassan-BTed. Knockoffs: Codex AI - Remote Codex. On the tooling side, only decomp.wtf (546 stars), PSPRecomp, console-skill (197 stars), replica-skill (6,954 stars) and ghidra's red flags are worth borrowing from.

## The hardest step

It's not a technical problem. The path has no endpoint: repos get deleted any time, accounts get banned any time, the authors are anonymous, and there's no reputation or money at the end.

## Who it's for

Not for anyone who wants to build a reputation or income. If you ship products, treat it as noise to filter out when reading the star charts.

## Should every product builder know this?

Yes. Essential for cleaning up the GitHub trending chart and the China-store tools chart. Bait repos are also a security risk.

## Change log

2026-11-08

Newly over the line: NotRexed/Hookshot (3 days, 1,474 stars) and sostenesfreitas/ocarina-recomp (static recompilation of Ocarina of Time, 2 days, 679 stars). Lichii added +1,566 today. The port cluster has 7 projects today and is still growing.

2026-11-07

Newly qualified: smarkyie/NSP-Box (a Switch game package tool, 7 days, 508 stars). mmdoctor/google-pro-helper (2 days, 813 stars, 324 forks) and yesterday's Google_AI_Pro_2Year_ZeroCost_Auto belong to the same wave of "free Google AI Pro" scripts. Lichii +1,685 today.

2026-11-06

Newly qualified: worldonlyu/Google_AI_Pro_2Year_ZeroCost_Auto (2 days, 2,185 stars, 921 forks; going by the name, an automation script for getting a Google AI Pro subscription for free), which is also gray traffic. zortos293/Lichii +1,258 today.

2026-11-05

floci-io/floci +908 today. GitHub-wide, 7 days: fxgl/steamac (runs Valve's official ARM64 SteamOS on Apple Silicon in a lightweight VM; created 32 days ago, 2,061 stars, 7 days +1,253), horizon-rust/horizon (a Rust rewrite of Minecraft Java Edition) +2,741, Droid-Deck (SteamOS experience on Android) +2,030. The game cluster has widened from "porting single games" to "moving SteamOS onto other devices." The latter has no asset-copyright issue, so risk is a bit lower, but there's still no way to make money.

2026-11-03

The "emulators / game ports" cluster on the qualified list: 5 repos. Newly qualified: shirai91/nx2android (a compatibility layer for porting Switch games to Android one by one; 10 days, 662 stars). totk-pc-recomp +798 today, NX2Apple +309, still climbing. Also chris124567/cfsolve (Cloudflare verification cracking; 537 GitHub stars, HN 275 points), which is gray traffic too. Unchanged.

2026-11-02

Backfill check: nxnative 10,602 → 10,886 stars (7 days +7,153, still "accelerating"); dsh-our-free-model 54,285 → 55,682; dsh-purge 14,542 → 15,295; AnyPS5, MacNativeGames, bloodborne_pc, workbuddy2api-panel are all marked "cooling". No repos were deleted or archived. Codex AI cn Productivity free #35 → #40, score 464 → 482. The bait repo 10-26 created nearly 10 times as many new repos that week as the week before.

2026-11-01

First recorded (backfill from GitHub New Opportunities (Batch 1) §3.1, §3.2, §3.4, §3.6, and App Store New Opportunities (Batch 1) §3.7, Stringers §4; data as of 2026-11-01).

Original: Scanner opportunity library #079 (updated daily, 06:00); this page was generated on the 2026-11-08 edition.