This is easily rectified by a single click and drag to resize the browser window to your preferred column width.
I for one much prefer print links for reading articles.
If you don't like ads, block them. I like well formatted text that doesn't require user intervention every time I go to a new page. That's sort of the entire fucking POINT of web design.
I totally agree. Unfortunately, many commercial pages present poorly-formatted text framed by blinking or brightly-colored distractions. I exercise a bit of user intervention to load the print link -- I just want the text, and I can size the column(s) easily.