# How do I make Firefox more stable in its display? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 29, 2017, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-make-firefox-more-stable-in-its-display/803034 "2017-11-29T08:43:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2017, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-make-firefox-more-stable-in-its-display/803034/1 "2017-11-29T08:43:09Z")
I’m using Firefox to browse wikipedia, and the display isn’t stable - it wiggles from side to side as a move the mouse around. Is there a way to make it stay put? thanks. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2017, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-make-firefox-more-stable-in-its-display/803034/2 "2017-11-29T15:03:45Z")
OS? ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2017, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-make-firefox-more-stable-in-its-display/803034/3 "2017-11-29T20:16:36Z")
I’m running Firefox (Ubuntu) and only occasionally have that problem. It happens when it sizes the page to be slightly larger than the window. Look at the bottom and see if there’s a left-right scroll bar. Sorry I don’t know any fixes; it doesn’t happen to me very often. I just get more careful about moving the cursor. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-make-firefox-more-stable-in-its-display/803034/4 "2017-11-30T03:17:24Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > OS? OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-make-firefox-more-stable-in-its-display/803034/5 "2017-11-30T03:18:25Z")
It’s stable for the SDMB, but as soon as I do a Reply, then I get the little vertical scroll bar at the bottom of the page and the page is wiggly, same as for Wiki. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-make-firefox-more-stable-in-its-display/803034/6 "2017-11-30T03:23:19Z")
Are you sure that you don’t have screen zoom turned on? A video of the effect you are seeing would help a lot, too… ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-make-firefox-more-stable-in-its-display/803034/7 "2017-11-30T18:56:11Z")
I don’t think so. I’ve clicked on Zoom under the Window tab and don’t get any change. I think **dtilque** is right: for some pages, Firefox turns on a horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of the page, just like the vertical one on the right hand side, and what’s causing the wiggle is a side-to-side scroll when I move the cursor, just like the cursor can scroll the page up and down. But, it doesn’t come on for every page and every site, just some of them. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2017, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-make-firefox-more-stable-in-its-display/803034/8 "2017-11-30T19:30:56Z")
The reason it turns on the scroll bar is that there’s a mismatch between page size and window size. There shouldn’t be one for most pages. Most should just default to the window size. That is, the browser should fit the page into whatever size window it’s opened in. Sometimes if you get a large image, table, or something similar, the page size is larger, but that hasn’t been the case in any time this has happened to me. If you’ve zoomed in or out, there should be an indication (percentage zoom) in the url field. At least Firefox on my system shows this on the far right of that field. (I’m sure there’s an option to turn this on and off.) Note that Firefox remembers the zoom for specific sites and reapplies that every time you go there. For instance, I have Wikipedia at 90% zoom and any wikipage it loads has that. But zoom has nothing to do with this problem.