Random Internet Browser Ui Change

Today my internet browsers are randomly much larger (Chrome and Mozilla). The UI and text, icons, videos, everything is somewhere around 125% instead of 100%, but I didn't do anything to change it. It's getting extremely annoying to have to manually resize every single page to 80%, just so it will appear as though it's at 100%, especially my Web Design lesson videos which simply can't fit on the screen anymore unless I do so.

This morning I woke up and shut off my laptop so I could bring it to the library, and when I turned it back on just a little bit ago... everything is larger. Unfortunately I don't know if it had changed prior to restarting it because I didn't do anything on it.

My computer folders are fine, my taskbar is fine, basically everything else is totally normal, it's only my internet browsers that seem to have randomly changed.

I'm on Windows 8.1, Chrome is version (54.0.2840.71 m) and Mozilla is (49.0.2). I don't use IE ever, so I have no idea if it's different or not. For all I know it's always big.

 

With the browser open, hold down the ctrl key and press the minus (-) key until you see the size you want.

If you get it too small, reverse by holding down the ctrl key and pressing the plus (+) sign.

 

Holding down the CTRL button and scrolling up or down on your middle mouse button will also change the zoom level to where as desired.

 

I guess I didn't describe my issue well enough. I know how to zoom in and out as you described, the problem is that the default zoom on my browsers is suddenly like, 130% and not 100%... except it says it's set to 100%. When I zoom out so that it's technically set to 80%, it's actually the size of what SHOULD be 100%. But 100% is massive now. So it's as though every zoom percentage is rendering at like, 20% larger than it should.

I've been zooming out on pages, including this one, but then when I close the browser and open a new one everything is huge again. So I can zoom out as much as I want, but it's always just temporary. Every single page I visit starts out massive when it didn't used to.

I can zoom out as a temporary solution, yes, but how do I make it so that it's not just starting out, like... twice as big?

 

I don't use Chrome and can't verify this procedure, but you might try the one here:
http://ccm.net/faq/35741-google-chrome-set-the-default-zoom-level-of-webpages

 

I don't use chrome in Windows but in FF, click on View then Zoom and reset.

 

On Chrome, click the 3 dots in the upper right corner and scroll down to zoom and set the level from there.



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another option at least in Chrome, might be to Disable DirectWrite

You can also fix this issue by turning off the "Disable DirectWrite" advanced setting in Chrome.

i.e. Disable the setting that is called "Disable DirectWrite". Do not Enable this setting.

• Paste this into the Chrome address bar and turn off the setting:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When you are done, it should look like this:



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I can't really tell what else might be going on that caused this to happen.

 

Well I tried the Disable DirectWrite but it didn't change anything. Thanks for all the suggestions though! I went ahead and set Chrome to automatically load all pages at 80% instead of 100% so that things are the correct size, as StruldBrug suggested. I still have no idea why this randomly happened but at least my class videos aren't halfway off the screen anymore.

 

Does Internet Explorer display the same behaviour?

 

Yes, IE, Mozilla and Chrome are all doing it.

 

Close all programs including your browers.
Open C:\Windows\Fonts
Look for Helvetica font and copy it to a folder.
Delete the Helvetica font and check all 3 browsers.

 

There is no Helvetica font in that folder. Seems like every other font is there, just not Helvetica.