Am I the last person who continues to browse the web in a window that isn’t blown up to full screen? I have noticed in the past several months that when I visit other people’s computers, or if someone else uses mine, the browser opens up maximized. My personal preference is to browse with Firefox in a non-maximized window, usually around 1000×700. My screen resolution on my desktop at home is 1280×1024, so it’s not like I don’t have the screen real estate there. At work, I’m working at 2680×1050 on my laptop screen, and 1600×1200 on my secondary display. Again, I am not lacking in screen real estate.
One of the other things I notice when I browse the web is that I tend to leave my browser window on the right side of the screen, leaving the desktop or other windows partially visible to the left of the browser window. Then, I will still find myself using the taskbar buttons to switch between applications, rarely using the Alt+Tab (or in Vista, Win+Tab) task switchers.
The sites I usually browse to fit most, if not all, of their interesting content within the confines of my windowed browser. On some sites, I am actually spared from viewing obnoxious flash ads on the right side of the page, because they are hidden off screen. The content, however, is still rarely obscured by the size of the window. There are times, however, that some content does get cropped from my view. In those cases, I just expand the window that tiny bit to let me see what interests me on the page.
Of course, there are times when I’m viewing pictures or other multimedia that might be best viewed with a larger window. I tend to hit F11 and expand the browser to full screen mode with minimal intrusion by the chrome. Then, when I’m done, I restore the windowed state of the browser and continue on with the rest of the internets.
So, does anyone else browse the web with a windowed browser instead of a maximized or full-screen browser?
I do. I used to use a maximized browser, but I discovered I like it better this way. For one thing, I like being able to look at what is on a browser side-by-side with other applications on occasion.
I used to browse in windowed browsers when AIM was my primary means of communication with the outside world and I spent most of my time playing online poker. But since I quit online poker ~2.5 years ago, I have used maximized windows.
I think maybe we got brainwashed at school. I vaguely remember taking Advanced Expo and every time we opened Netscape, it always came up in full screen. Same thing at university. OR maybe I’m just on crack.