Internet Explorer keeps resetting default zoom level

The title to this post is misleading. Why? Because Internet Explorer, while it does have its inherent flaws, doesn’t typically cause issues like this. What’s causing this issue is a toolbar. Queue the horror music! What you’ll come to find out about me is that I’m a browser minimalist, I can’t stand toolbars or unnecessary add-ons, extensions, etc.

I’m not going to get into the gory details of my overall hatred for toolbars in this post but I do plan on doing a more verbose article covering some different toolbars and the problems they pose.

Ok, back to the problem at hand. The user was complaining that every time she opened a new page in Internet Explorer 8, the zoom level was resetting to 100%. She needed it to stay at a default level of 150%. For those that aren’t aware you can set your default zoom level at the bottom right hand corner of the IE browser window (see below).

9 times out of 10 I find that for something like this a toolbar is to blame. In this case it was the Ask Toolbar. You can disable the toolbar but my suggestion is to uninstall it all together. I uninistalled the toolbar, restarted IE and the problem was resolved.