Frequently Asked Questions

MUGA: The web, with the noise turned down · Version 2.4.0 · Source code

    A direct, evidence-cited FAQ for skeptics. MUGA is the denoise extension for the web — it quiets the noise on every URL so the web feels clean and fast again. Every factual claim below is backed by a line in the source tree of this repository. If you find a discrepancy between what is written here and the code, the code wins — please open an issue.
  

This document is intentionally written for a technical audience that has already read the Privacy policy and the Terms of service and wants to verify the claims.

For skeptics

Q: Why install MUGA when I already have uBlock Origin / Brave / ClearURLs?

Because they solve a different problem. The generic class of "URL cleaners and content blockers" (uBO with the privacy lists, Brave's built-in shields, ClearURLs, etc.) is built to strip everything that looks like noise — which is the right default for a general-purpose cleaner, but it also strips affiliate parameters indiscriminately, because to a noise-detector they look identical to tracking.

MUGA's design point is narrower and more opinionated:

Remove the same noise parameters those tools remove — utm_*, fbclid, gclid, msclkid, mc_cid, igshid, the rest of the usual set (src/lib/affiliates-data.js:18).
Preserve affiliate parameters that belong to a creator — even on programs MUGA itself has no commercial relationship with (Booking, Vercel, DigitalOcean, etc.). The preservation table is sourced from MUGA's documented affiliate-program rules (src/lib/affiliates.js:136).
Be explicit about the one case where MUGA itself benefits — affiliate injection — and gate it behind an opt-in checkbox during onboarding (src/lib/prefs.js:25).

If you only want noise removed and don't care about creator attribution, a generic cleaner is fine. If you want the YouTuber who recommended you that USB-C dock to actually get paid for the recommendation, you need a tool that knows the difference between a noise param and an affiliate tag.

Q: Doesn't preserving affiliate parameters defeat the denoise goal?

No, and the distinction matters. An affiliate tag like ?tag=somecreator-21 identifies the recommender, not you. A tracking parameter like ?fbclid=IwAR3... identifies you, across sessions, across sites. MUGA strips the second and preserves the first.

You can verify the distinction in the code: the TRACKING_PARAMS list (src/lib/affiliates-data.js:18) and the AFFILIATE_PATTERNS table (src/lib/affiliates.js:136) are separate sources and are joined by the cleaner only at strip time.

Q: What about parameters that are technically "noise" but live inside a redirect wrapper?

MUGA leaves the redirect itself alone. Awin / ShareASale / Admitad / Impact Radius and similar redirect-based networks are classified as "network-redirect" affiliates and pass through unchanged: the redirect click is the attribution event, so unwrapping it would break the payout the creator earns. MUGA only strips generic tracking noise (UTM tags, click IDs) from the final destination URL once you land there. These networks are listed in MUGA_EXCLUDED_IDS (src/lib/wrapper-engine.js) and in AFFILIATE_REDIRECT_NETWORKS (src/lib/opaque-networks.js), which mark them pass-through.

Q: How do I verify what MUGA does on my own machine?

The full ruleset is in src/lib/affiliates.js.
The cleaning pipeline is in src/lib/cleaner.js.
The content-script bundle that runs in the page is committed at src/content/cleaner-bundle.js so reviewers can diff it against the ES module source it is generated from (noted explicitly in the privacy page at src/privacy/privacy.html:76).
The unit tests under tests/unit/ cover the cleaner's behaviour exhaustively. Run them locally with npm test.

Affiliate model

Q: Is MUGA monetised? How?

Yes. On a small set of supported stores, if and only if the user opted in during onboarding, MUGA can inject its own affiliate tag into URLs that arrive without any affiliate tag at all. The set of programs MUGA has its own tag for is hardcoded in src/lib/affiliates.js:74 (Amazon and eBay marketplaces; a handful of programs pending account approval; everything else is preservation-only).

Q: Is injection on by default?

No. The default for injectOwnAffiliate is false:

// src/lib/prefs.js:25
injectOwnAffiliate: false,  // set to true only if user opts in during onboarding (#224)

The user is asked explicitly during onboarding via a checkbox that ships unchecked unless the preference was already enabled on another device they own (src/onboarding/onboarding.html:96, src/onboarding/onboarding.js:183-184). On a per-device basis, the user can decline even if a sibling device opted in — the decline is stored as a local override and does not propagate back to sync (src/onboarding/onboarding.js:170-176).

Q: Does MUGA ever overwrite an existing affiliate tag?

Only if you have explicitly enabled BOTH "Remove all affiliate tags from other sources" and MUGA's own-tag injection. In that case the foreign tag is first stripped (per your remove-all choice), then ours is injected into the now-tagless URL. With injection alone (remove-all off), MUGA never touches an existing foreign tag: it is detected and honored (action = "detected_foreign").

The injection branch itself is still gated by !url.searchParams.has(pattern.param), so it never overwrites a tag that is present at injection time (an own tag the remove-all step preserved short-circuits it):

// src/lib/cleaner.js (Step 6)
if (prefs.injectOwnAffiliate && action !== "detected_foreign" && !blacklistRemovedAffiliate) {
  const hostKeyInject = hostname.replace(/^www\./, "");
  for (const pattern of patterns) {
    const ourTagForHost = pattern.ourTag[hostKeyInject] || pattern.ourTag[hostname] || "";
    if (ourTagForHost && !url.searchParams.has(pattern.param)) {
      url.searchParams.set(pattern.param, ourTagForHost);
      action = "injected";
      break;
    }
  }
}

That !url.searchParams.has(pattern.param) is the contract: a tag already on the URL at injection time is never overwritten in place.

Q: What happens if a creator's tag is on a program MUGA has no account on?

It is preserved anyway. The ourTag map is allowed to be empty for a program — preservation does not require MUGA to have its own tag for that program. The detection loop at src/lib/cleaner.js:679 iterates every pattern that matches the host, not just patterns where OUR_TAGS[prog.id] is populated. Programs like Booking, Vercel, DigitalOcean, Humble Bundle, and Lemon Squeezy ride this path (the AFFILIATE_PATTERNS table, src/lib/affiliates.js:136).

Q: Does my price change when MUGA injects its tag?

No. Affiliate programs pay a commission to the store, not the buyer. The URL change only affects who the store credits with the referral. Your checkout total is unchanged. This is the standard rebate-economy model that Amazon Associates / eBay Partner Network / Bookshop / etc. all run.

Network behavior

MUGA ships with two features that involve network requests: Remote Rules (on by default, #888) and "Follow shortener redirects" (opt-in, default-off). If you disable both in Settings, MUGA makes zero outbound network requests.

Q: What is "Follow shortener redirects" and when does it fire?

"Follow shortener redirects" is an opt-in feature that resolves generic URL shorteners (bit.ly, tinyurl.com, t.co, link.medium.com, lnkd.in, fb.me, ebay.to) so you can see the destination before navigating. The extension performs a direct fetch(url, { redirect: "manual", credentials: "omit", cache: "no-store" }) to the shortener host and reads the Location header. No MUGA server is contacted; there is no signed envelope because the redirect comes straight from the shortener host. Affiliate-redirect networks are NEVER followed.

Default: off (followShortenersEnabled: false).
Permissions are granted per-host only when you enable the feature, and are revocable at any time via your browser's extension settings.
Implementation: src/lib/native-shortener-resolver.js.

Q: What are Remote Rules and how are they signed?

Remote Rules is a feature that lets MUGA periodically refresh its noise-parameter list from a signed public endpoint, so users get protection against new noise sources without waiting for an extension release.

Default: on (#888, once the signing infrastructure and defense-in-depth verification were ratified as production-ready — see the CHANGELOG). See src/lib/prefs.js:52: remoteRulesEnabled: true. Disable it any time in Settings.
Every fetched payload is verified with an Ed25519 signature against a hardcoded list of trusted public keys before any rule is applied. The verification is at src/lib/remote-rules.js:214-248; the orchestrator that calls it is at src/lib/remote-rules.js:629-636.
On verification failure the previous ruleset is left untouched (src/lib/remote-rules.js:632-635).
The fetch is size-capped and timeout-capped before the signature check even runs (src/lib/remote-rules.js:594-606).

Q: Does any of this leak my browsing history?

When "Follow shortener redirects" is enabled, the extension itself sends a GET directly to the shortener host (e.g. bit.ly) with credentials omitted and no referrer. No MUGA server is involved; the request goes to the same shortener host your browser would have contacted on click. The only difference is that you never actually navigate to that URL, so no page-load context is handed to the shortener. It only fires on the seven opted-in shortener hosts when the feature is enabled.

Remote Rules sends no user data at all — it is a one-way GET of a signed JSON file.

If you want zero network activity, turn off both toggles in Settings. "Follow shortener redirects" already defaults to off; Remote Rules defaults to on (#888) and needs to be disabled explicitly.

Sustainability

Q: Who maintains MUGA?

A solo maintainer. MUGA is open source under GPL v3 (LICENSE) and accepts contributions, but the architectural and release decisions are made by one person. This is a deliberate choice to keep the project small enough to audit.

Q: How does MUGA pay for itself?

Affiliate revenue from the injection feature described above, on the small set of programs in src/lib/affiliates.js:74. The cost base is intentionally low:

The cleaner is a local computation; there is no per-user server cost.
The "Follow shortener redirects" feature (opt-in, off by default) is resolved entirely inside the extension — no MUGA server is involved, so there is no per-resolution infrastructure cost.
Remote Rules is a static signed JSON served from GitHub Pages, fetched at most once per 7 days.

If you want to support the project without enabling injection, the Ko-fi link in the README is the alternative.

Q: What programs are NOT in MUGA, and why?

By design, MUGA refuses to participate in affiliate programs whose model forces user clicks through external tracking servers (the "network-redirect" class — Awin, ShareASale, Admitad, Impact Radius, and similar). The extension still strips their noise parameters when encountered; it just will not inject them on MUGA's behalf. The rationale is in the MUGA_EXCLUDED_IDS set (src/lib/wrapper-engine.js:226) and the comment at src/lib/affiliates.js:105: deprecated Booking / Humble Bundle entries are removed, and Apple's PHG is intentionally not in OUR_TAGS because the program is closed to small publishers.

Q: What is the roadmap?

The roadmap lives in two places:

OBJECTIVES.md — the high-level objectives and non-goals.
GitHub Issues — the concrete work items.

Material changes to the privacy contract trigger a re-onboarding flow on each device the next time the service worker wakes up (src/privacy/privacy.html:59), so the user always has a chance to re-consent before behaviour changes.