Anyone else have this problem?

Free republic ^ | Ol hickory

[OL Hickory]

On my phone if I hold it straight up and down I cannot see free republic. The font size is too small. But if I flip it over and the phone is now east and west the font is big enough that I can scroll comfortably. Was this done on purpose?

[OL Hickory]

(Jeopardy music plays in the background) 😂

[Texas_Jarhead]

This website is not, to use web development parlance, responsive. Which is to say not mobile friendly.

[srmanuel]

that’s how an iPhone works, I have a iPhone 16 Pro Max, when I access FR on my phone I tap the screen once and the font automatically expands to a reasonable size, when I hold the phone in portrait manner, when I watch video I turn the phone to a landscape manner and the video is reformatted to fill the entire screen, font size works the same way in landscape.

What you are describing is not a problem it’s a feature.

[Bikkuri]

Is your iPhone later than an iPhone 12 mini? If so, please send it to me!

[Bikkuri]

I meant your older one, of course..

[Greg123456]

Tis been that way fer about 4 months. I have t turn it sideways n use my readin glasses

[doorgunner69]

I do not use iFag phones for internet stuff.
That is what PCs are for.

[srmanuel]

I’ve had iPhones for quite a few years and as best as I can remember, they have all worked the same way when it comes to expanding the font on a webpage plus what happens when you hold the phone in portrait versus landscape.

[dayglored]

> I’ve had iPhones for quite a few years and as best as I can remember, they have all worked the same way when it comes to expanding the font on a webpage plus what happens when you hold the phone in portrait versus landscape.

Likewise, I've had iPhones for over a decade and they've always done that on any reasonable website. It's definitely a feature not a bug.

FreeRepublic is a 1990's style of site, without all the extraneous crap that makes many modern sites unreadable. That's why we love it the way it is.

[Drago]

The FR website is not designed for “mobile” device size screens. There are Websites that detect mobile/smart phone usage and adapt their layout/font sizes to an appropriate size, but FR is not one of those.

You can check mobile compatibility using “Responsive Design Mode” as seen here (scroll down):

https://viewsource.net/guides/mobile-vs-desktop

More: https://rootedweb.com/mobile-vs-desktop-websites-why-mobile-optimization-is-crucial-in-2025/

[Rockingham]

Turn the phone off and then restart it.

[Drago]

Also, both iPhones and Android (Chrome browser) phones will automatically slightly enlarge the web page/font when the phone is turned sideways (”Landscape”). It is a “phone thing” not a Website design thing)

[KitJ]

Android or Google phone?

This has been an issue for months on my android phone. There are gobs of posts trying to figure it out.

Turn the phone sideways? Magnify text? It will not wrap-text like it used to. Very difficult to surf.

Turn it off and on again. Duh. Doesn’t work.

Samsung phone running Brave/Chrome browser.

[Bikkuri]

It took me a LONG time to change to iPhone (from Android).. I hate both..

But, when I did (my iPhone12), I will never go back.. ever.
Still hate Apple, but you can’t beat the security (unless I could afford to get a LinuxOS phone, which will always have a few glitches).

Can’t root it, but the security is the deciding factor (I couldn’t root my Samsung because of Knox, but the only better Android I had was Sony XPeria, which I could root, but not available here).

[Bikkuri]

BTW, I used to always pick on Swordmaker for always supporting Apple/iPhone.. but he was right about its security.

(And I did apologise to him a few years ago for always picking on him 😇)

[alexander_busek]

On my phone if I hold it straight up and down I cannot see free republic. The font size is too small.

You need glasses (or a magnifying glass): Presto! Problem solved!

But if I flip it over and the phone is now east and west the font is big enough that I can scroll comfortably. Was this done on purpose?

Yes, it was done deliberately, to annoy and irritate you, specifically!

Seriously: Are you trolling us?! Your question is akin to asking why the sliding glass doors of your local grocery store open automatically when you approach.

Regards,

[Olog-hai]

Yes. It seems that the old “phone view” is no longer working for this site.

This is not the only site that won’t display as it used to, however, so it seems that it’s on the OS or maybe the browser.

[Getready]

I have the same problem with my Android phone. Wasn’t like that 6 months ago.
My other Android phone expands to about 40 times when searching on Google web search site. Can only read a few letters....why? Who knows?

[alexander_busek]

My other Android phone expands to about 40 times when searching on Google web search site. Can only read a few letters....why? Who knows?

Because software engineers don't think like normal humans, who would have already long-since noted this problem (or been made aware of it by users), and corrected it.

There are a million such (to us) inexplicable and confounding glitches that we users are confronted with everyday. The responsible software engineers either don't know or don't care. (Or, more likely, rigid corporate mega-structures don't allow them to care.)

Regards,

[roving]

I can change font size.