How do I make the windows full screen?

Drag the window to the top left, then drag the bottom-right corner of the window (with the diagonal stripes) to the bottom-right of the screen.

The green button is not a Maximize button. It is a Zoom button. It is up to the application to define what it exactly does, but it is supposed to toggle between a users state and a size that completely and efficiently displays the content of the window. It will not fill the entire screen.

Lasey L. wrote:
I would like my windows in Safari and other programs to run full screen - I mean I paid for 24" not 19" lol.

This actually brings up a fairly good point: only a tiny subset of web sites are intended to be seen at the full width of a 24" monitor! Human beings are very poor at reading comprehension when confronted with incredibly wide lines of text.

It's even worse if the web site is a fixed width, as most are nowadays: why would you want a Safari window to display huge swaths of blank background to the left and right of the content? Instead, I'd use the space to keep an eye on your mail program in a separate window, watch your buddy list in your preferred IM program, etc.

If you really do want the green button to completely maximize your browser window, though, there's an easy solution: switch to Firefox 3.5. To provide consistency between the Windows and Mac versions, clicking the green button in Firefox fills the entire screen.

While in the window, hit command/+. Each the window will take up more screen space. Adversely, Command/- will decrease.

Interesting! If what you wanted was for everything to be bigger, note that you can also decrease your screen resolution, so that all items on the screen, not just web pages, are all correspondingly larger. For example, my parents do this to reduce eyestrain.

To do this, go to System Preferences -> Displays and choose a setting lower than your monitor's native resolution. For example, a 24" monitor is most likely set to 1920x1200. Changing it to, say, 1440x900 will make all elements on the screen bigger. They'll be blurrier as a result, but you may prefer it.

try this:

http://www.usingmac.com/2009/3/23/full-maximize-on-mac

This is my number one gripe about OSX. it's just plain silly that it's so inconsistant. There are some web pages that do benefit from a huge screen, such as google maps, openstreetmap, etc. In my experience even in finder the stupid green butto doesn't do what it should. it just gives you three columns of icons, and a scroll bar. If only it made the window big enough to show everything and arranged the icons to fit. Doh!

Wish Apple would fix this!