Solved Safari 5 'hanging' problem... now it's super fast!

[MacBoobsPro]

I along with quite a few others it seems have had a problem with Safari 5 being incredibly slow and sometimes not loading sites at all. The loading bar would get to roughly the end of http:// and then hang and usually bring up a message saying the server could not be found. I knew it was a problem with Safari 5 because I had installed it on all my home Macs and the ones at work too and ALL of them had the same problem.

I have now found a way to stop this happening and its to do with DNS servers.

Simply go into System Preferences > Network > Select you internet service (be it Airport, Ethernet etc) then click advanced and under DNS put the following numbers:

208.67.222.222
208.67.222.220

(These are apparently Googles DNS servers).

Quit Safari and relaunch and now you should have a super 'snappy' Safari 5.

I don't quite understand why this works or what DNS servers actually do but it seems to do the trick. So this is a very easy work around until Apple fix the problem.

 

[stuarthatto]

Those are the OpenDNS public servers - Googles is 8.8.8.8

I dont think Safari 5 slowness is entirely DNS related. I use OpenDNS servers all the time and Safari 5 is still slower than 4 - for me at least.

However if Safari 5 is slow for you and then changing DNS to OpenDNS' servers improves your performance then it is more likely your ISP has a DNS issue frankly than a Safari 5 issue.

Stu

 

[MacBoobsPro]

Those are the OpenDNS public servers - Googles is 8.8.8.8

I dont think Safari 5 slowness is entirely DNS related. I use OpenDNS servers all the time and Safari 5 is still slower than 4 - for me at least.

However if Safari 5 is slow for you and then changing DNS to OpenDNS' servers improves your performance then it is more likely your ISP has a DNS issue frankly than a Safari 5 issue.

Stu

I'm with Sky at home and BT at work. Both worked flawlessly under Safari 4. As soon as I updated to 5 I got the same problem on all 4 machines.

What does an OpenDNS do?

 

[allan.nyholm]

Simply go into System Preferences > Network > Select you internet service (be it Airport, Ethernet etc) then click advanced and under DNS put the following numbers:

208.67.222.222
208.67.222.220

(These are apparently Googles DNS servers).

Quit Safari and relaunch and now you should have a super 'snappy' Safari 5.

I don't quite understand why this works or what DNS servers actually do but it seems to do the trick. So this is a very easy work around until Apple fix the problem.

You may want to change the last numbers to 208.67.220.220

On a similar note. I too have experienced long response times. Sometimes Safari 5 will try to contact the website for a long time and then eventually load it. I will try to use OpenDNS again. Or Google's - which is 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 for the secondary one.

 

[matthos]

works like a charm, serious!

thanks!!!

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

The can't find server is a troubling issue that many are facing since the update. some have been able to stop it while others have not.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

This is how it should look.

 

[canoejohn]

Thank you!!!

I've been so frustrated with this problem since Safari 5's launch. I had to move to Chrome because Safari was unusable but Chrome, whilst very good, has some annoying habits especially when viewing PDFs and other downloads.

Changed my DNS settings as per the instructions above and wow!!! Safari is now superfast and my browser of choice again.

Thanks!!!

 

[cuy333]

This is working nicely on both of our computers. Happy again !!!

 

[celticpride678]

This is how it should look.

I don't think you should use 3 different external DNS'

 

[garywag]

Changing or adding DNS speeds up page loading even through a wireless router. Using iMac with Mac OS X 10.6.7 and Safari 5.0.4.
The view problems are still there. Links and banners not viewable as they were in Safari 4 and are in Firefox 3.6.
Is this something to do with Flash or video settings?

 

[Ramsos]

I know this is a really old thread but it has helped me tremendously. Safari lagged so bad for me on macrumors that I had to turn off wifi on my 15" i7 2.0ghz MBP and turn it back on to get most pages to load. But now things are working great. I hope it last.