Why is my browser leaving out so much space in both sides?

Question

While browsing, my browser left a lot of space in its both sides. I just installed Ubuntu 18 just a two days ago.
Here are some screenshots :

How do I reduce those extra spaces. All my browsing pages looks so tiny and very hard to focus.
What to do?

David Mulder · Answer

Scaling
If you came from windows
I am going out on a limp assuming you came from Windows when you say that "I just installed Ubuntu 18 just a two days ago.". On Windows by default when you have a 1980x1080 laptop it will zoom in everything:

This means that everything will be bigger, and thus less things will be visible. Personally I don't like this, but some people do and it's especially useful if text otherwise becomes too small to read for you. The important thing to realize is that despite all the empty space on the left and right you actually still see more actual content than you would've seen otherwise.
On Ubuntu
Not currently using Ubuntu, but Googling around it seems like Ubuntu 18 doesn't currently support system-wide scaling in a similar way. There is experimental (!!!) support for this in Ubuntu 19: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2019/06/enable-fractional-scaling-ubuntu-19-04
Why do websites leave all that blank space?
On one hand websites need to support both smaller displays (e.g. tablets and small notebooks) and zoomed displays (e.g. Windows and Macs) and on the other hand small extremely long lines of text is hard to track with one's eyes, so 'just making the website full width' won't be appreciated. The easiest solution is just using a single website design with a maximum width.
My recommendation to you
If you're able to comfortably read text without zooming in: Just get used to this. A useful shortcut to learn is Super+Left Arrow and Super+Right Arrow (The 'Super' key is the key which typically has a Windows or Apple logo on it). It allows you to very easily snap two windows to the left and right part of the screen which with most professional work can useful.
If you're not able to comfortable read text without zooming in: Either upgrade to the next version of Ubuntu and try out that experimental support from that earlier link, or set your resolution to a lower value.

rubo77 · Answer

If you are lazy, and don't want to adjust the zoom level on every page with ctrl + and -, you can install this add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/zoom-page-we/
It has an option "Fit-to-width"

programmer365 · Answer

A webpage consists of HTML elements, JavaScript and CSS.
The total content you see in a webpage is inside the <body> tag. And the main things you see is aligned in the middle of the page, and that is seperated by a different background color border. The empty side seems to have a gray background color. You can inspect element (Right click empty area > Inspect Element) or view the source code.
Also if you don't like that color, then you can tweak the Element CSS. Such as I have made Ask Ubuntu borders Black:

First I have inspected the element then changed background-color to var(--black) from var(--white).

atirit · Answer

On the off-chance you're referring to the spaces on either side of the address bar, you can right-click on either space and click "Customize...". Then you can drag them out of the bar and they'll disappear.

Answered by atirit on December 29, 2021

user1109288 · Answer

You can set a default zoom level in your Firefox settings. Check which level best suits your favourite websites and set it up. Next time you open firefox, all websites will be displayed with this zoom applied

Answered by user1109288 on December 29, 2021

Mohit Atray · Answer

Just press Ctrl++ key to increase size and Ctrl+- key to decrease size of webpage in the browser.

Pilot6 · Answer

This is normal. It depends on how a site is designed (for example, from the screenshots you added, Stack Overflow and help.ubuntu.com have the empty spaces, but YouTube doesn't).
In general, regarding everything being tiny on all sites, you can reduce your screen resolution, or use zoom in Firefox settings.

Julien Chau · Answer

Al the right side of your browser screen you see the three stripes for changing the preferences or calling the menu.  Push it,search for zoom,  and change the zoom factor to for ex. to  133%

Why is my browser leaving out so much space in both sides?

8 Answers

Scaling

If you came from windows

On Ubuntu

Why do websites leave all that blank space?

My recommendation to you

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