Using Safari can slow your system down as much as 76% vs Fir...

[MacBytes]

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Category: Benchmarks
Link: Using Safari can slow your system down as much as 76% vs Firefox (http://www.macbytes.com/link.php?sid=20070226213103)
Description:: The interesting thing about these results (to me at least) is that both Firefox and Safari were simply open during their tests. I was not actively “surfing”, ie. clicking on things, moving windows, etc. It seems to me that a background application, especially one that should not really be doing anything all that processor-intensive even when in the foreground, should not hog system resources the way Safari apparently does. If Firefox can play nice, why not Safari?

Posted on MacBytes.com (http://www.macbytes.com)
Approved by Mudbug

[nazmac21]

I still like Safari, though. Didn't expect news like this at all.

[mrkramer]

I will still use Safari, except for maybe when I am processing large files, but this did surprise me I wonder why Safari does that and not firefox.

[Sayer]

How was Safari configured? Was there some RSS feed checking going on? What was the page each browser had loaded?

Without actual test details this comparison is totally meaningless. Where are the screenshots showing Safari consuming CPU time while in the background?

Worthless information designed to generate page (*cough* ad *cough*) views.

[no_name]

For anyone interested, just did a quick test using Activity Monitor, with Safari and Firefox, each visiting the same pages (start on Apple home page, going to Digg.com, linked to youtube video of Bill Gates talking about Vista - hilarious btw) and then set them both as background applications for a few seconds. Sitting idle, Firefox was using 1-7% more CPU, 3 more threads (dont really know if that's good or bad) and 10MB more RAM than Safari (which sat at 0-5% CPU, 6 threads, and 60MB RAM). Interesting.

Maybe more threads are better? Thoughts?

[BOOMBA]

How was Safari configured? Was there some RSS feed checking going on? What was the page each browser had loaded?

Without actual test details this comparison is totally meaningless. Where are the screenshots showing Safari consuming CPU time while in the background?

Worthless information designed to generate page (*cough* ad *cough*) views.

The article says "digg.com, cnn.com, myspace.com, macenstein.com (of course) and virb.com)"

and

"For the record, all tests were done twice, and the average times were used. My Safari installation should be fairly clean, as I have not installed any odd plug-ins or such. Pretty much the factory default settings."

:D

[CANEHDN]

More threads are better. It means the app is multi threading it can speed up performance of the apps. This is one thing a lot of apps lack especially when it comes to dual core or multi processor systems. Multiple threads can be fed to different processors speed up the app even more.

[smueboy]

I have to say i'm surprised as i thought Firefox was more cpu-hungry, but then i can't compare since i don't have Ff installed.

[CTYankee]

The article says "digg.com, cnn.com, myspace.com, macenstein.com (of course) and virb.com)"

and

"For the record, all tests were done twice, and the average times were used. My Safari installation should be fairly clean, as I have not installed any odd plug-ins or such. Pretty much the factory default settings."

:D

My n=1 results:
Launch...time (s) for application to fully open
Open file...time (s) from opening in finder to open
Save as 1...time (s) for saving as first time
Save as 2...time (s) for same file saved as a third file
Radial Blur...time for radial blur, best, 10 on flattened image.

Test image was a 11x8.5 300 dpi multi layer file (175mb)
System: Dual 867 G4, 1.75GB RAM, PSCS3 (no restarts)

launch PSCS3 Open File Save as 1 Save as 2 Radial blur

No Browser:
11 16 21 16 84

Safari:
17 20 21 18 97

Firefox:
11 17 22 17 150

Launch...Safari ~50% longer, FF Equal
Open...Safari ~20% longer, FF Equal
Save as 1...Safari equal, FF Equal
Save as 2...Safari and FF slightly longer
Blur...Safari ~15% slower, FF 90% longer

go figure...

[Tehy]

hmm... I still stay with the Safari :)

[nagromme]

My test was with Folding@Home (SMP), but Safari was using very little CPU. So even if Firefox used even less, it wouldn't be a big difference.

But this was on a Core 2 Duo, while the article used a dual G5. Maybe that's the difference, or just the particular app used.

In the end, though, what an app DOES for me is most important, and I like Safari's compactness and simplicity. If I needed to do a long After Effects render and the deadline was mere hours away, I'd avoid do ANYTHING on that machine :) Browser choice is only an issue while you're browsing.

[FadeToBlack]

Using Firefox sure FEELS a lot slower than Safari and doesn't feel Mac-like at all. I have Saft installed, which gives me just as much functionality as Firefox. I will stick with Safari. :cool:

[Kingsly]

I use firefox when safari simply wont open a web page properly (.001% of the time...)

Otherwise, it's safari all the way. :)

[Max Payne]

In my MBP, Safari is definitely faster than the bugged FireFox. I can't even stand FireFox anymore. Although I am forced to use it, since Safari doesn't support Arabic. :mad:

[Markleshark]

Yeah, but Firefox takes three quarters of an hour to fracking open.

Safari all the way. :)

[nagromme]

To be fair, I really like Firefox's Find function--but it appears that Leopard Safari will have something similar.

[clevin]

Yeah, but Firefox takes three quarters of an hour to fracking open.

Safari all the way. :)

now thats a lie :p

[twoodcc]

i'm staying in the safari :p

[mkrishnan]

I use firefox when safari simply wont open a web page properly (.001% of the time...)

I noticed for the first time in a looong time, that Safari didn't seem to treat eBay's seller pages (only -- not their buyer pages) properly, and I had to use Firefox to put some items up for sale. But as you say, this is a 0.001% thing. That's the only time I can think of that I had to switch back and forth. Oh, there's also the google talk feature of GMail, but then I prefer it to not work, since then I can run Adium and not have confusion about whether Google chat sessions show up in my browser (where I don't want them) vs. Adium (where I do). But still....

[SPUY767]

One word. Opera.

[mkrishnan]

One word. Opera.

Two words: No thanks. :eek: ;) :D

[withinavoid]

I read recently this bug has been fixed in the latest nightly builds of Safari. The problem was something with javascript <10ms polling or something like that. Basically Safari would update as fas as 1ms while Firefox would be a minimum of 10ms. At least that's how I understood it.

[someguy]

Safari leaks memory like mad on my computer. Using Shiira, after a few hours of surfing and just a few other apps open, I've more than a GB of free RAM. Surfing with Safari and I've got less than 100MB.

Closing Safari only returns a couple hundred MB also. :rolleyes:

[Snowy_River]

I keep Ff around mainly for one purpose. Ebay. I find that eBay pages load very slowly in Safari, and when I'm in the last moments of bidding, I want to be able to reload FAST.

Otherwise, I'm quite happy with Safari. Though I will echo the findings of the test. Namely, I have found that when I'm doing something processor intensive, like watching a video, having Safari open in the back ground can slow things down, annoyingly. But this is the rare time that I notice this. When I do, I simply close Safari and go back to whatever I was doing.

(Also, for the record, I have copies of IE(5.2! :eek: ), Ff, Camino, Navigator, and iCab, for testing. Never really got into Opera, myself.)

[andrewface]

i dont like the startup time of firefox...if theyd fix that it would be the ultimate browser for mac

[clevin]

i dont like the startup time of firefox...if theyd fix that it would be the ultimate browser for mac

u might see big improvement on firefox 3.0, since its written in cocoa.