How stable is Safari?

[freesonwang]

I am a big Firefox fan but the recent Safari 4 plus Glims (http://www.machangout.com/) has made me consider Safari again.

The problem is that I am one of those users that have major beachball problems with my Safari (both 3 and 4) and I was wondering how many other people seem to experience this kind of unstable, slow behavior with Safari. It seems like a thing I see on help forums a lot.

 

[Meek Wriggle]

Safari is completely unstable. It effectively caused my divorce from my wife of 16 years and lost me my job and my home.

On a more serious note... Safari is very stable. I've never had it crash on me, and neither have the majority of users (it's only the complaints you see on the forum because they're the ones needing help; you won't see people starting up threads on how nice it is to have everything working). The only problem I've had with Safari 4 recently is installing XMarks (a bookmark addon). Safari didn't like it (which is weird because it did like it in the past) and kept crashing. I fixed this by getting rid of XMarks.

 

[theITGuy]

I had major issues and dislikes with Safari 3...and I've used Firefox for years now...but I'm using Safari 4 more and more on my MBP after a friend told me how fast and stable it was...it's a pleasure to use that's for sure.

Cheers.

-J.-

 

[SimonJ]

Both Safari 3 and 4 almost always lock up when I'm scrolling a page that hasn't finished loading... it's so annoying. But I've never heard of anyone else having that problem, so it's probably just me...

 

[jon08]

Safari is nice - faster than Firefox in pretty much all aspects. It feels like a breath of fresh air in terms of speed if you switch from Firefox. Also, it has only crashed once since I updated it to Safari 4, so I'd say it's pretty stable. As far as beach ball is concerned, it sometimes appears briefly, but that's about it.

 

[ltldrummerboy]

Coupled with Glims, Adblock, and GreaseKit, I have no reason to use Firefox. No problems with Safari 4 even with lots of plugins and add-ons.

 

[SolRayz]

I've been using Safari for some time now so I'm somewhat biased towards it, however, yesterday, I figured I'd give Firefox a try. Right away I noticed how poor the scrolling, even with "smooth scrolling", that I reverted back to Safari. Nothing for OSX really compares in my view.

 

[elppa]

I've been using Safari for some time now so I'm somewhat biased towards it, however, yesterday, I figured I'd give Firefox a try. Right away I noticed how poor the scrolling, even with "smooth scrolling", that I reverted back to Safari. Nothing for OSX really compares in my view.

Don't let Clevin hear this!

On the stability issue, crashing isn't the end of the world, I just hit return then choose “Reopen All Windows From Last Session”. I have more annoyances with other alternatives day to day than the occasional Safari crash (which on my machine takes just a few seconds to recover from).

 

[KingYaba]

Right away I noticed how poor the scrolling, even with "smooth scrolling", that I reverted back to Safari.

You may need to adjust the sensitivity in Firefox. Type about:config in your address bar and then type mousewheel.withnokey and configure. This is my setting:

 

[zub3qin]

Big fan of Safari.

Safari 3 was great. Safari 4 beta was greater.
Updated to Safari 4 release version and it turned into a mess on my Macbook with many sites crashing (including Apple's own Apple store!). This has been reported by lots of people and I think it may be related to JAVA or something.
Lots of freezing, spinning wheels, and general slowdowns.

I started using the Firefox 3.5 release version today. It has been very stable- so far no crashes or lockups, and a smaller RAM footprint than Safari. It's user interface isn't quite as slick as safari- maybe 95% of the way there- but until Safari 4.1 is released and all these bugs are fixed, I'm sticking with Firefox.

 

[MacAndy74]

Ever since switching to Mac I've tried Firefox for a short time but I always keep coming back to Safari. Fast, lean and rock solid for me.

 

[Diane2boys]

.

 

[ChocolateJesus]

Animoots

Seems that Safari STILL can't handle animated gifs too.. but other than that, version 4 made me switch from FireFox.

 

[ltldrummerboy]

I have no problem with animated GIFs in Safari 4.

http://www.animatedgif.net/computers/computers.shtml

 

[MacAndy74]

before I downloaded Safari 4 I was having no problem. Now It crashes. It seems almost randomly. The pages it crashed on were not heavy with Java so not exactly sure what it is.

Yesterday it happened 5 times. It is getting annoying......Maybe I should try firefox.......

Maybe you need to 'Reset Safari...' or run Rember and check if you have faulty memory?

@ ChocolateJesus Also, no problems with Antimated Gif's here.

 

[Diane2boys]

[

 

[Drag'nGT]

I love Safari 4. I never really liked Firefox but I use it for it's ability to record flash from websites. I wish there was a plug in for Safari that allowed me to do that. Anyone?

 

[EMKarelia]

To be honest I really love the new Safari! Really comfortable to use.

 

[str1f3]

Safari 4 is really good but I would recommend not installing too many plugins. Glims, SafariBlock, and 1Password if you use it. Too many plugins on any browser can screw things up eventually.

With the exception of handling bookmarks, I think Safari is a classier Mac browser than Firefox.

 

[gusious]

Both Safari 3 and 4 almost always lock up when I'm scrolling a page that hasn't finished loading... it's so annoying. But I've never heard of anyone else having that problem, so it's probably just me...

Actually i'm having the same problem. It's like a glitch. When i'm scrolling it lags and beach ball appears and spins for a couple of seconds. Very very annoying...

I didn't have this issue with safari 3.x

 

[clevin]

Safari is nice - faster than Firefox in pretty much all aspects.

lie, in below aspects its slower than firefox.

1. the urlbar of safari is not smart enough to help users reaching the websites theywant, firefox can save them up to 15 seconds here.
2. build-in FAYT in firefox save you 1 second
3. drop down menu with list of most visited websites at urlbar save mice users another 1-15 seconds.
4. allowing users to download different files into different folders save another minutes or so since users don't need to later go through every folder to re-arrange their downloads
4. search among large amount of downloads in download manager save users potentially <1 minute to 20 minute, depends on how many downloads you have since last time clearing the list.
5. DNS problem with safari will delay users for unknown amount of time, rare situation tho.
6. ability of saving more than one pair of usernames/passwords on same webpage save many users at least 10 seconds
7. notification bar for passwords remembrance save users unknown amount of time when they got the password wrong.
8. able to handle ftp protocol directly save users another 1-10 seconds
...
...

or you think those time isn't time? you have been spreading too much misinformation already, your "all aspect" is only supported by a JS test and derived from your own personal experience which many people previously told you that may be a problem with your own computer. Its quite irresponsible for you to make such statement like you made above, it really amounts to slander.

I've been using Safari for some time now so I'm somewhat biased towards it, however, yesterday, I figured I'd give Firefox a try. Right away I noticed how poor the scrolling, even with "smooth scrolling", that I reverted back to Safari. Nothing for OSX really compares in my view.

Don't let Clevin hear this!

why? because I will tell him/her to try out firefox 3.5 today? Did I ever deny a problem of firefox if its true? Pixel scrolling is fixed in firefox 3.5, you dont want him/her to be informed about this?


To OP, generally safari should be stable enough for day to day use. you might want to do a reset of safari and see if it helps.

 

[elppa]

why? because I will tell him/her to try out firefox 3.5 today? Did I ever deny a problem of firefox if its true? Pixel scrolling is fixed in firefox 3.5, you dont want him/her to be informed about this?


To OP, generally safari should be stable enough for day to day use. you might want to do a reset of safari and see if it helps.

I had know idea this was the case, the comment was meant in jest (as you have been know to have posters running round the internet in a wild goose chase of plugins and configuration properties!).

Just a bit of fun, no harm intended.

I downloaded 3.5 today. The useless button in the history manager is still there, but it looks prettier now, which is good. Hopefully in 3.6 it gets removed or made inactive when clicking on it doesn't do anything.

In popup windows (like the attachment manager on these forums) the copy command works (which is good).

Sadly it's a bit confusing because the show/hide toolbar button is now broken. Clicking once hides the toolbar as expected, but a second click does not reveal the hidden toolbar, rather it shows the standard toolbar. Subsequent clicks show/hide the standard toolbar.

Puzzling.

The drag and drop tabs are useful, but now you can drag tabs to form new windows, a window consolidation feature would be nice.

The privacy icon is cool and clever in the preferences, I like it.

Those are my first thoughts.

 

[celticpride678]

I am using Safari 4.0.1 and it has not crashed once yet. Firefox crashes more for me than any other browser.

However, I have not tried Firefox 3.5 yet (which was released today).

 

[ltldrummerboy]

Firefox 3.5 is suhweeeeet! I'm going to be splitting my time between the two from now on.

OP, they're both stable. Use the one that you like best.

 

[clevin]

I downloaded 3.5 today. The useless button in the history manager is still there, but it looks prettier now, which is good. Hopefully in 3.6 it gets removed or made inactive when clicking on it doesn't do anything.

In popup windows (like the attachment manager on these forums) the copy command works (which is good).

Sadly it's a bit confusing because the show/hide toolbar button is now broken. Clicking once hides the toolbar as expected, but a second click does not reveal the hidden toolbar, rather it shows the standard toolbar. Subsequent clicks show/hide the standard toolbar.

Puzzling.

The drag and drop tabs are useful, but now you can drag tabs to form new windows, a window consolidation feature would be nice.
.

you are acknowledged! Several bugs I reported are pointed out by you, and I know for a fact at least two fixes are made for those reports. Others are either dups or will have to wait for next version.

Appreciate your help indeed.

PS. I laughed, so you know I was not really mad or anything like that.