are widgets harmful?

[ero87]

I'm a fan of downloading many random widgets (often fun and useless ones)... does it slow down my iMac G5 to have these widgets? Meaning, does dashboard slow down my computer when dashboard isn't active? Thanks.

 

[robbieduncan]

Each widget that is open in your Dashboard will use a small amount of RAM even when Dashboard is not visibile. Widgets that are not open do not use any RAM. This may result in some paging when you show/hide the Dashboard if you do not have enough RAM but apart from that it should be fine.

 

[stridey]

I'm a fan of downloading many random widgets (often fun and useless ones)... does it slow down my iMac G5 to have these widgets? Meaning, does dashboard slow down my computer when dashboard isn't active? Thanks.

Once Dashboard has been brought up for the first time after login (and all the widgets load) it takes up resources even if it isn't active. In other words, yes. It's going to use memory: how much RAM do you have?

 

[kretzy]

Are widgets harmful?

Oh extremely. They've been known to cause severe allergic reactions and skin diseases.

 

[ero87]

I have 1GB of RAM. So would it help do just delete my infrequently-used widgets? or is the speed loss insignificant?

ooh and just a side-note: how do i post screenshots on these forums? I know how to take them, just don't know how to post them.

 

[cube]

I hate widgets, specially all those 'tune only this radio' ones.

 

[stridey]

I have 1GB of RAM. So would it help do just delete my infrequently-used widgets? or is the speed loss insignificant?

1GB is probably plenty. I might have been misleading: the widgets that you have don't take memory if they're not open in Dashboard, but the ones that are open take up memory even if Dashboard isn't in front. I'd guess that as long as you have ~6 or fewer widgets open at a time you really see a performance hit.

 

[jacobj]

Dashboard needs major improvements before I seriously use it.

Back to the point: there were issues with Widgets automatically installing when 10.4 was first introduced but this has been removed and you now have to authorise them. So just be careful and make sure that you have a good level of trust as to the source of the widget.

 

[grapes911]

Back to the point: there were issues with Widgets automatically installing when 10.4 was first introduced but this has been removed and you now have to authorise them. So just be careful and make sure that you have a good level of trust as to the source of the widget.

I don't think that was the OPs point or question, but you do bring up a common concern. Even if an unauthorized widget was able do install itself, I don't think it could do any damage. It could display a porn add or something, but that is probably it's limit.