improving your ao3 experience
As a site, AO3 has a lot of functionalities built in. But it can’t do everything. That’s where user scripts come in handy.
User scripts are a kind of browser extension or plugin. They work inside your browser, be it Chrome or Safari or something else, and they add functionalities to existing websites. Think Xkit here on tumblr.
In the AO3 FAQ, there’s a page where they list a ton of different user-created plugins to improve your AO3 experience. These plugins can do a lot of the things that people regularly ask AO3 to make a part of the site. If there’s something you wish you could do on AO3, check that list. You might find what you’re looking for.
A small selection of the things user scripts can do for you:
save your filters so you don’t need to enter them every time you search
save your searches and then track them so you can run all of your searches at once and find updates or new works
blacklist terms and hide works that contain those words so that you don’t see them
hide creators or terms - the AO3 version of tumblr saviour
add a download button to the blurb page (the page of search results or tag results) so you can download without clicking into the fic
There are a lot more available on that page and people are creating more all the time! Just recently, @starrymeta created a user script to make commenting with reaction gifs easier.
Most mobile browsers don’t allow for extensions and plugins, so these will be more useful for desktop users. But if you have an Android device, Firefox allows them while Chrome does not.
If you have favourite AO3 scripts, please share them in the notes. And if you’ve made one, please link it!