AO3 tag-blocking browser extensions
I've been using ao3-tag-blocker for a while now and liked it, but I recently learned about AO3 Savior as well and thought it was interesting how they work differently from each other, for different purposes.
ao3-tag-blocker works within ao3's own tag-tree system. I love trees, they're so nice, and the tag wranglers do good work maintaining those trees! This allows ao3-tag-blocker to block all synonyms of a tag I've blocked, including subtags and stuff, which is great! However there are 2 slight limitations. (1) The urls of seach pages include my blocked tags as excluded, so I still have to see them if I look at the urls. Even if I'm searching for something for which results wouldn't include any of my blocked tags anyway. (2) The blocking is "a nuclear option", so if there's a fic that includes one of my blocked tags, I won't even know of its existence or have the option to unhide it to see it anyway.
AO3 Savior on the other hand, only blocks the version of the tag you tell it to block. It doesn't work within ao3's tag-tree system, so if you block, let's say, "alpha/beta/omega dynamics", tag synonyms of that such as "a/b/o dinamics" will not be blocked by AO3 Savior, and sub-tags like "Alpha Castiel/Omega Dean Winchester" will also not be blocked by it. Also, in the ao3-savior-config I think it only works if I put the tag in lowercase? The fact that it doesn't work with ao3's tag-tree system is a big downside compared to ao3-tag-blocker. However it does have an upside for certain tags: there are some tags that I want to see less of but don't want to nuke completely. I like being able to know that there's something there that's filtered, and having the option to unhide it if I feel like.
AO3 Savior does have wildcards so I think you could use "*a*/b*/o*" to block both "alpha/beta/omega dynamics" and "a/b/o dinamics", but even that wouldn't block other tag synonyms like "α/β/ω". Also, I think AO3 Savior's tag blocking only really works when your ao3 preferences don't have "Hide additional tags" checked? Otherwise the blocker doesn't notice fics that have blocked "additional tags".
I've been using ao3-tag-blocker for longer so it makes sense that I still like that more. But I might start using a 2-layer system, where if a tag starts annoying me a little bit I can use AO3 Savior, but if it and variations of it start annoying me a lot I'll block it with ao3-tag-blocker. AO3 Savior gives choice for unhiding things if I feel like, so it makes a good 1st-layer, and ao3-tag-blocker is more "airtight" because of the tag-tree system and the work that tag-wranglers put into it, so it makes a good 2nd-layer.
