why is my firefox browser so small on my screen?
9/11/11 I bought a new dv7 hp laptop with windows 7 and a high def screen and when I open firefox, I have to enlarge every single page I go to just so I can read the text. I have had to revert to using internet explorer which doesn't have this problem. Have you heard this one yet? Firefox worked fine on my 3 year old hp laptop with vista. Thanks.
Chosen solution
I believe from reading further that Internet Explorer has the ability to adjust its font size based on the screen resolution.
Increasing the screen resolution causes Internet Explorer to compensate by increasing font size automatically.
I'm not sure why this feature isn't built into Firefox but I assume it is something to do with Internet Explorer being the default Windows browser.
The feature is known as DPI Scaling.
http://www.istartedsomething.com/20081029/windows-7-dpi-scaling-my-7-is-bigger-than-your-7/
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You stated that your laptop has a high resolution screen.
What is your resolution set to?
What I suspect is that you have the resolution set very high and as a result of this, text and other objects will appear very small.
You can reduce this effect by reducing your screen resolution.
You can find this out what your current resolution is and adjusting it by going to the following web site (Microsoft):
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Change-your-screen-resolution
I recommend that you set your resolution to 1280 x 1024 pixels, anything higher than this will make the text look very small. Anything lower than this will make the text look large. 1280 x 1024 is the recommended resolution, but you may need to experiment with it till you get the screen how you want it.
Firefox probably looked fine on your older laptop because it didn't support such high resolutions and you probably aren't used to seeing the screen in high resolution.
A high resolution screen means that there are more pixels on the screen. As there are more pixels on the screen, the pixels are smaller. The pixels being smaller means that the text and all other elements on the screen are also smaller.
Reducing the resolution will have the opposite effect.
I hope it helps.
Thanks. That helped. Still, IE doesn't have this problem. I can leave it on high res and everything looks normal on web pages. Seems to be a Firefox problem on my end.
Chosen Solution
I believe from reading further that Internet Explorer has the ability to adjust its font size based on the screen resolution.
Increasing the screen resolution causes Internet Explorer to compensate by increasing font size automatically.
I'm not sure why this feature isn't built into Firefox but I assume it is something to do with Internet Explorer being the default Windows browser.
The feature is known as DPI Scaling.
http://www.istartedsomething.com/20081029/windows-7-dpi-scaling-my-7-is-bigger-than-your-7/
Modified by nyquist
Good info. Thanks. I hope Firefox reads these posts and finds a solution to this problem. I'm a little surprised that they didn't plan for this.
You can use an extension to set a default font size and page zoom on web pages:
- Default FullZoom Level: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/default-fullzoom-level/
- NoSquint: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/nosquint/
Use this for the user interface.
- Theme Font & Size Changer: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/theme-font-size-changer/
Thanks again for all your help nyquist and cor-el. Much appreciated.
hello ...i have a big problem..I changed the monitor with a 21.5-inch Full HD 1920x1080 Resolution .. I have a website that I can not zoom in and give him the writing is tiny add-on I tried to zoom ... go on all pages but on that website no what can i do?i use windows 7 and whit google chrome and opera i don`t have this problem