I have hair algae well established in all my tanks; it's surprisingly easy to control by the simple expedient of reducing the total photoperiod, as well as dividing it into two shorter periods, morning and evening, with the lights off during mid-day. Real plants do fine this way; algae, not so much.
I've sort of come to think of hair algae as two species or varieties; regular filamentous hair algae, which can grow many inches long and stringy, forming voluminous masses that can be harvested very easily as they tend to adhere to themselves, letting you get a huge amount of the stuff each time you grab it. It's so cohesive that you must be careful with small fish or shrimp to make sure that there aren't any trapped in the natural net as you remove it.
The other variety...probably exactly the same species...is what I have come to call "fur" algae.

It stays much shorter, maybe an inch, and forms thick carpets on hardscape. Comes off in much smaller chunks when you try to pick it up, so not as easy to harvest but also not that fast-growing. It lends an absolutely stunning, naturalistic look to a tank, IMHO.
The only other variety I have in any noticeable quantity is the Blackbeard stuff, as illustrated in the post by
Backfromthedead
in this thread. Try as I may...I can't bring myself to like this stuff. It's much tougher to remove than hair algae; thank goodness it grows pretty slowly. It seems to be able to telepathically determine where I absolutely don't want it to grow, and then spitefully shows up in that exact spot. Nothing seems to eat it. I am not a fan!
