Older MBA on high sierra safari terrible performance

[Hustler]

2010 mba here, I've been updated to high sierra for a while, and safari has been bad the whole time. I've done google searches on the subject and have found the recommendations to turn on the developer view to clear cache from there, didn't help, neither did deleting the cache file in the finder / library/ safari / cache.db as suggested.
I've reset the PRAM and SMC, still very slow and lots of lag and beachballing.

In comparison, I run google chrome browser and its so much faster and smoother. I know my laptop is old and slow, underpowered and I should upgrade by now....but c'mon why can't safari at least outperform chrome browser in its own computer.

For my work we use a lot of google stuff like gmail, and google drive. For example if I view a cell in a spreadsheet on my google drive, and edit it in safari, it takes at least 5 seconds for a key stroke to show, then if I hit tab to go to the next cell, no response then beachball. Open google chrome and its almost immediate. No stutter at all.

When safari is open for a while I can't even close it, the entire computer freezes and I get a beachball for about 10-20 seconds until the computer unfreezes, but still wont close safari, I have to force close it from the activity monitor screen.


*another issue with this issue*

I've had older OS' installed in the past on this computer so I know I can download them via usb drive and re install a different OS however, I've updated my entire photo library in apple photos to this new format, and when I run a different OS the library can not read this file structure....SO that won't work for me! I have tried running an older OS, can't remember which but safari ran much better, just didn't play in that OS very long as I knew my photo library would be a dealbreaker, so went back to good ol high sierra.

Besides trying to reformat my entire photo library somehow and by running google chrome for all my internet duties......what can I do?

PS I've already tried to put mojave on this and my machine is too old to run it now.

Thanks for any advice,
Brad

 

[Tech198]

Try deleting everything in the Cache folder, not just the file...

Backup files in home folder/Library/Preferences
Then delete contents of Home folder /Library/Preferences

Restart Mac..

Alternatively, System Preferences >> Users & Groups
, and create a new account. logoff and back into the newly created account, then test Safari issue again

If its all fine, then its an account problem

 

[Hustler]

Try deleting everything in the Cache folder, not just the file...

Backup files in home folder/Library/Preferences
Then delete contents of Home folder /Library/Preferences

Restart Mac..

Alternatively, System Preferences >> Users & Groups
, and create a new account. logoff and back into the newly created account, then test Safari issue again

If its all fine, then its an account problem

I deleted everything in the cache folder, rebooted, still had safari lag.
I then deleted all the files in the /Preferences folder, computer overall felt a little more responsive but when testing safari, it still lagged.
I created a test user, and now its acting as expected for this era machine, which is much better than it was. I can edit a cell in my spreadsheet and the type almost instantly appears as its typed in where as before there could be a 5-10 second delay when you quickly type 'this is a test' before it appeared in the cell. Also no beach balling when tabbing to a different cell in my spreadsheet.

How do I correct my account problem if thats where it seems the issue is?

Thanks for your help!
Brad

 

[Tech198]

You can either delete the affected account and use new account only (more easy to do, bu u'd have to transfer all your documents file/ or any user-created stuff over, which could be time consuming). or keep old account around ...*can be related to drivers/or sometimes*

When did the issue start ? and id you install anything just before the issue started? Once you know this, you'll know what the problem is, or related to.

If you don't have anything on the old account you wanna keep, or you just wish to use the new account only, (sometimes its difficult finding what had happened), it better to just backup and copy stuff to new account..

Apple says that because its always seem to work best

If u created a standard account, you can convert it to admin. In Users & Groups in the account select "Allow user to administer this computer"

 

[Hustler]

You can either delete the affected account and use new account only (more easy to do, bu u'd have to transfer all your documents file/ or any user-created stuff over, which could be time consuming). or keep old account around ...*can be related to drivers/or sometimes*

When did the issue start ? and id you install anything just before the issue started? Once you know this, you'll know what the problem is, or related to.

If you don't have anything on the old account you wanna keep, or you just wish to use the new account only, (sometimes its difficult finding what had happened), it better to just backup and copy stuff to new account..

Apple says that because its always seem to work best

If u created a standard account, you can convert it to admin. In Users & Groups in the account select "Allow user to administer this computer"

First of all, I don’t know when this all started, I go through spurts using my iPad or my mba for work duty and it had been a long time with the iPad now so hard to say about the mba.


I played with this for a bit tonight and even though I made a second admin account and logged in to verify it as so, somehow it was erased along with my old admin account so I was stuck with guest accounts lol.
Found a thread online about how to rectify, boot holding control s and then entering 3 strings in terminal commands. Did this and was able to now set up another admin account. Done.

Used it tonight for a while and had safari running the whole time and right away at first, safari was much better, no beach balling when tabbing through google cells. Night went on and it got slower. No beach balling yet but night and day slower than chrome that I had open as well to compare.

I fear it’s going to get just as bad as it was, I will put some more milage on it tomorrow at work.

 

[MultiFinder17]

How much RAM is in your MBA?

 

[Hustler]

How much RAM is in your MBA?

2gb of ram. Low specs for sure but chrome manages to work fine with it. I tried to go a full day on safari but actually felt my work flow slowing down to a crawl with all the lagginess. So jumped over to chrome and back to what I would expect on a computer with low specs even considering it’s a 8 year old machine. Nothing lightning fast but sure snappy enough to move around a google sheet and back and forth to gmail etc.

Btw my safari use started beachballing after more than an hour of use or so.