Stop browsers from jumping when loading the page?

[Mark Bolton]

Is there any way to get browsers (I use chrome) to not jump all around as they load the content to the page? I find it so annoying that when I load a page which may have a large image (im on a 3mbps connection) and you scroll down to the image but then it continually re-positions the page as all the little links and social medial links are loading. The page is shifting left to right, up and down, and inevitably just as your ready to click a link or the next arrow the page shifts and you wind up clicking on the wrong link.

Unbelievably annoying. Especially when my ISP is slow, or I want to look at the image for a few seconds. I have taken to hitting the X (stop) button once what I want to see is there but surely there is a better way.

[Alan Gan]

Try using Firefox

[Bruce Page]

I use Firefox, it does the same thing. Drives me nuts sometimes.

I'm at 28.4 Mbps down & 5.15 Mbps up.

[mike holden]

this is the way HTML works. It calls for the graphic, then continues to the next thing, usually text. Then when the graphic arrives, the text is moved to make room for the graphic.
You can stop the jumping around by turning off graphics, but then you will only see the text from a page.
Best way to stop the jumping is to upgrade the internet connection speed. But it will still show up with really large (file size) graphics.

[Myk Rian]

Try using Firefox
FF does it also. PITA.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

One thing that might help you, Mark, is to simply stop loading the page if you've got enough to digest the info you want, or at least stop the page from continuing to load before you click anything to go anywhere else. Hit escape, or the little X next to the home icon, and it should stop. That should keep any more stuff from loading in and making the page jump around as it gets pulled in.


I don't do a lot of slow-connection browsing anymore (we're on a high speed connection at home) but it seems like this is getting worse than it was in the past. Is this something about how modern CSS constructs web-pages? In ye olden days of the web, you could avoid this simply by declaring the size the image would be (whether that was altered or just the same size as the image itself) and then the browser could space things out on the page, with a blank space for the image to be filled in as it was downloaded. If the source for the page didn't declare pixel size, the browser didn't know how big the image would be until it fetched it, and than as the image loaded in, you would get this "jumping" effect. It seems that the more fancy stylesheets or CSS or whatever is going on, the more I see this issue; so perhaps theres more going on in modern web coding? I stopped paying attention to how to write web stuff a long while back now.

So maybe this is something different, but in the past, it was really the fault of the guy making the webpage.

The biggest gripe I have is some sites loading photos that are *huge* and then shrinking them down. Photos that are bigger than my desktop image size, then sized down to a thumbnail size rather than resizing the photo in question and serving me the smaller version. I've even seen this on some larger news sites. Annoys me.

[ray hampton]

I got this problem BUT MY bigger problem is the mouse cursor [right word ?] will cause the page to scroll up or down WAY more than I want

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

You can often change that, Ray. Assuming you're on windows, open up "mouse properties" in the control panel. On my wife's computer (I use a Mac) I was able to quickly get there by clicking the start menu, and then clicking on "control panel". In the control panel screen, type "mouse" in the "search control panel" field in the upper right. From there, you should be able to navigate easily to the mouse control menu - on my wife's computer, "change how the mouse wheel works" or something along those lines is one of the options after I type "mouse" in the search field, but if you get to the mouse settings panel, "wheel" should be one of the options in the tabs across the top. It might be different depending on which version of Windows you have, and obviously different if you're on a mac or linux, but there should be a setting on any modern OS.

I'm assuming you're talking about scrolling by using the scrolling control on the mouse itself and not clicking on the sidebar - although I believe there's a way to change that, too.

[ray hampton]

You can often change that, Ray. Assuming you're on windows, open up "mouse properties" in the control panel. On my wife's computer (I use a Mac) I was able to quickly get there by clicking the start menu, and then clicking on "control panel". In the control panel screen, type "mouse" in the "search control panel" field in the upper right. From there, you should be able to navigate easily to the mouse control menu - on my wife's computer, "change how the mouse wheel works" or something along those lines is one of the options after I type "mouse" in the search field, but if you get to the mouse settings panel, "wheel" should be one of the options in the tabs across the top. It might be different depending on which version of Windows you have, and obviously different if you're on a mac or linux, but there should be a setting on any modern OS.

I'm assuming you're talking about scrolling by using the scrolling control on the mouse itself and not clicking on the sidebar - although I believe there's a way to change that, too.

I was talking about scrolling by clicking on the side bar or the bottom bar , the mouse button are either sticking or side bar are sticking, do you recommended a shot of wd40 into the mouse

[Alan Gan]

I use Firefox, it does the same thing. Drives me nuts sometimes.

I'm at 28.4 Mbps down & 5.15 Mbps up.


FF does it also. PITA.

I really do not have this issue and I only have 12 down and 5 up. Could it be the screen settings, could they be set to high for the computer to handle? All but one of my computers are older and run Widows, I have Ubuntu on this machine.

[Kev Williams]

As Mike above says, it's just how the pages load. Text comes in first, followed by pictures. Space is set aside for the pictures around the text, but the pictures are bigger than the space, so as the pics fill in, everything else gets shoved up, down and sideways to make room for them.

If you have firefox, and want to try quick & dull browsing, click on "view", then "page style", then click "no style". You won't be bothered much by screen-jumping! :D

[Garth Almgren]

I wouldn't put WD40 in there, it could gunk it up more over the long run. Best bet is to disassemble the mouse (usually 4 screws under the glide pads on the bottom) and clean all the gunk out with some electronics or contact cleaner (isopropyl alcohol) and q-tips. Or buy a new mouse - they're so cheap nowadays it'd probably be cheaper than buying a can of electronics cleaner. :)

[Myk Rian]

I was talking about scrolling by clicking on the side bar or the bottom bar , the mouse button are either sticking or side bar are sticking, do you recommended a shot of wd40 into the mouse
Click on the arrows at the top-bottom and right-left ends of the scroll bars. Not IN the scroll bar.

[ray hampton]

Click on the arrows at the top-bottom and right-left ends of the scroll bars. Not IN the scroll bar.

sometime I will click on the scroll bar to move the page quick But this may not cause a quick move, but if I click on the up or down arrows for a slow advance , the speed of the advance , well I do live in KY home of fast horses

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Garth's got good tips, and honestly, given how cheap mice are these days, I'd probably just get a new one; but I have to say that usually, when I want to scroll and I'm not on my laptop (where I can scroll by using two fingers on the touchpad) nine times out of ten, I just use the arrow keys or the page up/ page down keys. Spacebar also works sometimes, or home and end keys to jump to the top and bottom of a page.