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Comment by pbalau | Hacker News Reader

> I’d say perhaps once per day I’ll encounter a website that has never had zoom in/out (ctl +/-) tested because if you zoom up even one level from 100%, everything breaks

Just tested, hn breaks if you zoom >110%.

View on HN

How does it break for you? Seems OK to me on android — in fact, I already had it at 110%. Reminded me to check my desktop settings which have HN fixed at 125%. I cannot believe that, in 2026, the default font size is set at 12px — is anyone actually reading it at that size?!

> I cannot believe that, in 2026, the default font size is set at 12px — is anyone actually reading it at that size?!

The very first "quality of life" thing I do when I install a new computer / operating system nowadays is double (sometimes triple) the default font size. 12pt was probably fine when our monitors were 640x480, and when we were 18 years old.

I leave HN on default everything, but I have a 1080p monitor so it might look bigger for me than someone with a higher resolution monitor... I don't know how that works. But I often have to zoom out of websites linked here because the text is so big and it feels uncomfortable to read

For some reason I though the GP was talking about browsing on mobile, where I have the issue:

https://imgbox.com/EiovsE5b https://imgbox.com/A4Fl9lE9

The same issue happens on desktop but it requires zooming a bit more than 110%, and is screen-size dependent.

Yeah, 12px is fine (27" 1440p, no display scaling). It is on the small side. I'd go a bit larger for something I made. But it's not a small enough to slow down my reading.

Which platform is this on? I usually read hn on a desktop browser, and it works fine well above 110% there.

Android

https://imgbox.com/EiovsE5b https://imgbox.com/A4Fl9lE9

I use DuckDuckGo Browser, Firefox, and Chrome on Android pretty much in that order of preference. In both mobile mode and desktop mode all of these browsers support pinch zoom and two-finger drag scrolling. I have no problems with this site using those.

I think we might need a little more information than just the OS to differentiate.

I browse everything at 125% and HN is fine on my machine so I decided to check. It depends on your width.

1080px wide (aka on my vertical monitor) HN comments stop reflowing > 300%

At 1920px wide it never stops reflowing.

For some reason I though the GP was talking about browsing on mobile, where I have the issue:

https://imgbox.com/EiovsE5b https://imgbox.com/A4Fl9lE9

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