Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Safari Boggs down easily! Why?

M

MacVault

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jun 10, 2002
1,144
59
Planet Earth
Does anyone else notice Safari bogging down, slow, and lagging in responsiveness after it runs for a little while or is used just a little bit? I'll launch Safari, surf around to a few (average) sites, open a few tabs, and Safari begins to slow way down, be very "laggy", etc. If I quit it and relaunch it it seems to be ok at first and then starts doing the same thing. I never noticed it doing this on previous versions, not even on version 1.0. They system itself seems find and other programs seem fine.

iBook G4, Mac OS X 10.3.3, 640MB RAM, 60GB, Safari 1.2.1 (v125.1)
 
speed

MacVault said:
Does anyone else notice Safari bogging down, slow, and lagging in responsiveness after it runs for a little while or is used just a little bit?
Click to expand...

it's not much different from having several high-resolution photos open in a graphics application - the machine just can't communicate with all of its parts fast enough. as your hard drives increase in speed, as RAM goes up, etc, the browser will be able to deal with its own cache a little better. as you've noticed, when you start going to additional pages, things start to slow down. the memory space that Safari occupies is just getting bigger. your iBook is a good machine, and you've maxed it out pretty well, but it's still no speed demon (and neither is my maxed-out PowerBook). as long as the browser is open, the system is holding the contents of each open page in memory, whether it's "hidden" in a tab or right in front of you.
 
603 said:
it's not much different from having several high-resolution photos open in a graphics application - the machine just can't communicate with all of its parts fast enough. as your hard drives increase in speed, as RAM goes up, etc, the browser will be able to deal with its own cache a little better. as you've noticed, when you start going to additional pages, things start to slow down. the memory space that Safari occupies is just getting bigger. your iBook is a good machine, and you've maxed it out pretty well, but it's still no speed demon (and neither is my maxed-out PowerBook). as long as the browser is open, the system is holding the contents of each open page in memory, whether it's "hidden" in a tab or right in front of you.
Click to expand...

I never noticed it being like this with past versions of Safari. I realize what you're saying about the memory being filled with pages/tabs etc. Oh well, maybe the next version will be better.
 
Personally I think that Safari has a serious memory leak, or it just manages memory horribly. Just now I quit and reopened Safari because it was getting unbearable. Before I did this, however, I took a look in Activity Monitor and found that Safari was using over 280MB of RAM and almost 1 gigabyte of virtual memory. I had only 4 tabs open, and the pages were not exactly complicated. After reopening Safari it was using only 14MB of RAM. Apple really needs to work on improving Safari.
 
I Agree!!

I have been trying so hard to stay loyal to Safari, but it is getting harder everyday
 
I agree with all the comments made so far. A after having 4 or 5 windows open, Safari runs very slowly. What is even more annoying is when you try to stop loading a page, by the time the button reponds it has finished loading and it refreshes the page (this happens to me all the time). Hopefully we will see a big improvement in Safari soon.
 
latergator116 said:
What is even more annoying is when you try to stop loading a page, by the time the button reponds it has finished loading and it refreshes the page (this happens to me all the time).
Click to expand...

This happens to me too!! I can't stand it. I keep trying to remember to hit the esc key instead, since that will also stop the page from loading, but if the page is already done it does nothing instead of reloading it.
 
Elan0204 said:
This happens to me too!! I can't stand it. I keep trying to remember to hit the esc key instead, since that will also stop the page from loading, but if the page is already done it does nothing instead of reloading it.
Click to expand...

This has got to be the most annoying thing in Safari. In fact, I get slow response time for everything in Safari (i.e. I will click on the bookmarks bar and 20 seconds later it will pop down). This has got to be fixed...
 
I just switched in March and I never even bothered with Safari. I use Mozilla Firefox instead (www.mozilla.org). It renders pages MUCH fast than Safari and it doesn't suffer from the slow down you've mentioned. I suggest you check it out, its a very capable browser, and better than Safari in every way, as far as I'm concerned.
 
I have Firefox too, it is my backup browser. However, I prefer Safari's interface over Firefox's, and that is really what keeps me from using it instead. I tried, without luck, to find a good Safari theme for Firefox, so if anyone knows of one please let me know. It might get me to switch to Firefox as my primary browser.
 
Celeron said:
I just switched in March and I never even bothered with Safari. I use Mozilla Firefox instead (www.mozilla.org). It renders pages MUCH fast than Safari and it doesn't suffer from the slow down you've mentioned. I suggest you check it out, its a very capable browser, and better than Safari in every way, as far as I'm concerned.
Click to expand...

One question though, why does it take Firefox soooooo long to start up? I've tried opening it on a g3 and a g5(dual 2 ghz with 2.5gb of ram) and the response time is the same. Once the browser is open is nice and fast. On a pc it's instantaneous.
 
I noticed the long startup time on my PB as well. It would have bothered me, but its only the first startup, after that every subsequent startup is instantaneous.
 
kirk26 said:
One question though, why does it take Firefox soooooo long to start up? I've tried opening it on a g3 and a g5(dual 2 ghz with 2.5gb of ram) and the response time is the same. Once the browser is open is nice and fast. On a pc it's instantaneous.
Click to expand...
FireFox in Windows uses Quick Launch technology (if enabled) to reduce startup times by keeping key parts of the app in memory between launches. The Mac version lacks this feature (probably because Mac OS doesn't support it) - that's why launch time is slower. Try disabling Quick Launch on your PC and starting FireFox (after restarting Windows so the change takes effect): notice that the launch is no longer instantaneous?

By the way, I don't have this problem you Safari users are mentioning. I haven't checked its RAM usage, but it (generally) doesn't "lag" at all, even if I have 20 or more tabs open (all but one of those tabs are inactive, loaded pages). It does freeze on certain sites (like FedEx.com - see this thread), but it always recovers - it doesn't crash, either. I have no idea why it is so slow for you.
 
Celeron said:
I noticed the long startup time on my PB as well. It would have bothered me, but its only the first startup, after that every subsequent startup is instantaneous.
Click to expand...
Did you know that Mac OS X caches the data needed to start applications once you launch one so that subsequent launches on the same boot are faster, sometimes dramatically so? The behavior you're experiencing is that caching process at work.
 
wrldwzrd89 said:
Did you know that Mac OS X caches the data needed to start applications once you launch one so that subsequent launches on the same boot are faster, sometimes dramatically so? The behavior you're experiencing is that caching process at work.
Click to expand...

The I should probably lock the cache folder if there is one like safari so nothing can write it. That solved my problem with safari taking so long to start. I think I saw that trick on osxhints.com I think.
 
wrldwzrd89 said:
FireFox in Windows uses Quick Launch technology (if enabled) to reduce startup times by keeping key parts of the app in memory between launches.
Click to expand...

i'm familiar with the quick launch" setting, but Firefox (on a PC) launches pretty slowly whether quick launch is s enabled or not. once it gets up and running (on Windows or Mac), i think performance is acceptably quick, and it's even an improvement from the previous 0.7 version (Firebird). Safari is a close second, but Firefox is so tweakable that i can get it to do exactly what i need, with extensions or with my own preference hacking. i use Firefox exclusively on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

most of the perceived slowness of the Mozilla suite comes from the fact that they wrote their own cross-platform APIs. this is both the curse and saving grace of all current Mozilla-spawned applications - the fact that it even runs on platforms other than Windows is attributable to this, but it also has to carry around a lot of cross-platform code.

that being said, there are many parts of the Mozilla suite and the XUL programming language that favor the Windows APIs, and the whole suite is still noticeably faster on Windows than on the Mac. Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox weren't even available for the Mac up until 0.6 unless you compiled your own version from the nightly trunks. while there were other reasons for doing the research the Mozilla team did and coming up with their own APIs and XUL, i'm sure much of the drive to get the project going stemmed from an urge to unseat IE as the vehicle of choice for Windows web users.

the tip recommended above - locking the Safari cache folder - is a good one. that's what i was going to recommend at first, but i wasn't at my Mac and didn't remember if Safari had a cache-setting feature. for the thread-starter's reference, the site is actually www.macosxhints.com, not osxhints.com
 
603 said:
i'm familiar with the quick launch" setting, but Firefox (on a PC) launches pretty slowly whether quick launch is s enabled or not. once it gets up and running (on Windows or Mac), i think performance is acceptably quick, and it's even an improvement from the previous 0.7 version (Firebird). Safari is a close second, but Firefox is so tweakable that i can get it to do exactly what i need, with extensions or with my own preference hacking. i use Firefox exclusively on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

most of the perceived slowness of the Mozilla suite comes from the fact that they wrote their own cross-platform APIs. this is both the curse and saving grace of all current Mozilla-spawned applications - the fact that it even runs on platforms other than Windows is attributable to this, but it also has to carry around a lot of cross-platform code.

that being said, there are many parts of the Mozilla suite and the XUL programming language that favor the Windows APIs, and the whole suite is still noticeably faster on Windows than on the Mac. Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox weren't even available for the Mac up until 0.6 unless you compiled your own version from the nightly trunks. while there were other reasons for doing the research the Mozilla team did and coming up with their own APIs and XUL, i'm sure much of the drive to get the project going stemmed from an urge to unseat IE as the vehicle of choice for Windows web users.

the tip recommended above - locking the Safari cache folder - is a good one. that's what i was going to recommend at first, but i wasn't at my Mac and didn't remember if Safari had a cache-setting feature. for the thread-starter's reference, the site is actually www.macosxhints.com, not osxhints.com
Click to expand...


Well sorry! I was remembering the website from memory.
 
try tabbing with eBay!

One day I showed my wife how to open pages in tabs. Big mistake. Now she goes on eBay and opens all these pages in tabs. She'll sometimes have 10 of them open, all with ebays horrid page layouts and sellers 800x600 photos. Yikes. When she does that the whole system slows to a crawl, but she just goes on her way (she studies a lot while doing eBay stuff, or The Sims).

Now me? Even if I have four tabs open and things a just a little slow I grow very impatient. I have no idea how she stands it. A fellow on Applecare told me having multiple tabs open is similar to having multiple browsers open. Bummer. :(
 
Ok, Safari has found a new home... my trash can.
If I have more than two applications open, and more than two windows open in Safari, it is basically unusable. Anytime I click on anything, I get the beach ball for at least 10 seconds. Mozilla, here I come! :)
 
Congrats, the Mozilla teams make some fine projects. If you find that you don't like Firefox, try Camino, it was specifically written for OSX. I use Firefox on my PB because that is also what I use on my PC, I like keeping everything the same. Camino looks nice, but it wasn't for me. If you want to try it I suggest you download the latest nightly build rather than what is on the Mozilla homepage. You can get it here:

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/camino/nightly/latest-0.8/

Version 0.8 is expected any day now.
 
themes

Firefox on the Mac also has an incredibly nice theme called Pinstripe. i think the theme is made by the same author of the original Pinstripe theme, which (IMO) didn't look too great and still had the Aqua pinstripes. the newest iteration of the theme is awesome... the pinstripes are gone, and i think it looks better than Safari. it's also built especially (and exclusively) for Mac OS X.

link to Pinstripe theme:
http://kmgerich.com/archive/000049.html

Mozilla Thunderbird is also available for the Mac and might be something to consider as a Mail.app alternative. it uses a very similar Pinstripe theme of its own. if i'm not mistaken, the Mac versions of both Firefox and Thunderbird ship with the Pinstripe theme as the default.

so yeah, if Safari's got you down, be sure to check out Firefox...
http://mozilla.org/products/firefox/
 
mem usage

I think this was metioned in another thread where mac OSX allocates more memory to even simple programs to make it faster. so AIM or Safari can take a couple hundred. I thought this is much better than PC's using only 14 mb of ram when you have like 1 gig.

OSX is smarter in that it just doesnt leave ram lying around or else everyone should jsut buy 15 mb mem sticks. Whats the point in having 1 gb if youre not going to use it?
 
i like to go through several forums and open many interesting threads in new tabs. it takes a second for the page to start loading, and i find that it's very slow to switch tabs while the starting tab is loading... overall, i'm happy with it, and i agree that adium and firefox are great apps and so, but i just like the apple way... if someone can make an ichat skin for adium or a safari skin for firefox, i might consider it... actually, if they would just add profile support and add a feature to resize the buddy list to the size it needs to be... (i like viewing buddy icon, and online users only and not having the scroll bar there)

btw, why are they so many browsers from mozilla?? there is mozilla, firefox, thuderbird, and camino... just make one "ultimate" browser?

sry for any grammar errors; i'm using windows and i just had a HUGE dinner...]

reality
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back