Web pages appear Cramped

When I surf different web pages, at least half of them appear cramped. That is, they are all pushed to one side or in the middle. I have a 15" screen with updated drivers, but it has always been like this. I have the font set to medium (does not change even if font sizes are changed) and with the encoding I have it on Auto-Select. This does not change with or without auto-select. www.msn.com has the entire web page on the left and there is about 4 inches or just blue background to the right. www.cnet.com has everything cramped in the middle with about 3 inches on each side of just gray background - and all the images have text all over them. These are just some examples, yet other webpages like this one spans the entire screen and looks normally. Is there something I need to change?

Many web sites have their pages set to view at 800x600, if you have your monitor set to,say,1024x768, there will be blank space at the side(s) of such web pages...

Ridgerunr,

Thanks for the reply. I guess I can't do anything then. Having the resolution on anything else but what I have (1400 x 1050) makes the sharpness extremely poor. What's weird is that my friend's computers (and I assume most others) are not at 800x600 and these pages do not show up like that.

I have the resolution set at 1024 X 768 and I run across quite a few pages that are displayed on only about 2/3 of the width of the screen. That happens when the author of the web site defines the size of the page in number of pixels instead of percentage of the window.

BigTimeNovice,
Sorry to change the subject, but I have Dell Inspiron 5100 on my short list for when I need a new laptop. I would appreciate your comments on it please. You say you love it. Is it that good? Can you give me any pros/cons you have found? A user`s opinions are always good to know.
Thanks very much

Elaine

Thanks everyone for the replies. I guess that's just the way the web pages will be displayed.

Dunedin, I truly enjoy this laptop. Here are some pros/cons:


Pros: Fast, great screen, Decent battery life (about 1.5 hrs with normal, non-gaming use), nice sized keyboard, free built-in wi-fi antenna if you buy dell's wireless card*, 2 USB 2.0 ports, 1 Firewire port, touchpad mouse with programmable touchpad locations, Full Pentium4.

Cons: Kinda Heavy (~8lbs), Costly but overall best price/quality ratio IMO, more thicker than thin, gets semi-hot but cooler than most laptops i've used.

* I did not get an integrated card although in retrospect I feel that I should've b/c it is very cumbersome to load and unload the wireless card.

Hope this helped!

BigTimeNovice,
Thanks for the info. The Dell will stay on the top of my list. I very much like the look of it too.

Elaine