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Which Browser Won't Make my Mac Overheat.

N

nostrum

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 6, 2005
49
2
London
I've got a 12 inch PB, which I bought last July running Tiger 10.4.5. The biggest problem with it is that it start to get very hot when I'm using certain browsers. Initially the problem was with Firefox, when using that to browse, CPU usage would go up to 100% and my machine would heat up to 50c to
55c occasionally hitting 60c. So I ditched that and started to use Camino, but I had the same problem. So then I switched to Safari same problem there.

I'm currently using Opera which seems to be ok, no overheating, but its the slowest of the four browsers that I've used.

Is this overheating typical of those browsers or am I just doing something wrong?
 
If a browser, which are relatively not processor intensive, is causing your powerbook to use 100% of your CPU, then something is wrong.

I have a 1.67 powerBook and Safari generally stays under 5% (usually 0) when I just have windows open. While downloading a new page, it may hi 40% (and sometimes way higher), but that is only for a second or two, then it drops back to under 5%.

About Temp, 50 degrees is about normal. If you are not doing anything, it may get as low as 38-39. If you are really doing huge calculations, then you may get up to 65-69. I don't think the fans even kick in until 67 degrees.
 
I can relate... kinda. On my crappy three year old Dell laptop, the fan absolutely roars whenever I go to a heavy page, like espn.com ... that's what I get for buying a lappy with a 2ghz Celeron three years ago. Runs hot too. Needless to say, my cpu knowledge is night and day now ... afterall, I switched to Macs :)
 
what??? Opera is the quickest browser I've ever used by far. It's kind of ugly I thought, but it loaded up on my 1.5Ghz pbook faster than any other browser. Thus the only reason I used it. It initially opened the program slower though.
 
Safari is way better than Firefox IMO.

Are you certain your Powerbook is heating up that much? Is it the fan you're hearing or the hdd spinning?
 
The temperature goes up from 42c to about 50c - 55c. CPU usage also goes up to 100%.

From a standing start, Safari and Camino were the fastest, then Firefox and finally Opera.

What I was to open them up individually and to see how much of the CPU resource they were taking up. Firefox was the worst then Camino. Safari looked good for a while but them went mental as well. The only one that didn't hog the processor was Opera.

I'd prefer to use Safari or Camino, both are easily the quickest, but Opera lets my machine run coolest.
 
Safari is a dog... Opera is the quickest (tho FF w/ Fasterfox comes close) while Camino is the prettiest.
 
nostrum said:
Safari looked good for a while but them went mental as well.
Click to expand...
This is also my experience with Safari. When you launch it, everything is cool and good. But then open some tabs, surf around a bit, and eventually just begins to progressively get worse, sometimes freaking out and pegging the CPUs (on my dual G5 even), then showing very long pauses (like click on a tab, it shows up 10-30 seconds later), or even hangs on a permanant BBOD. This is the case on all three of my Macs (a G4 tower, a G4 Titanium PowerBook, and a dual G5 tower.
 
rdf8585 said:
Safari is a dog... Opera is the quickest (tho FF w/ Fasterfox comes close) while Camino is the prettiest.
Click to expand...

I found Opera to be the slowest, but I am running v9.0 the technology preview, so that version may be slower?
 
when scrolling in safari it can use up to 25% of my 1GHz G4 CPU.. you have a problem.

For me Camino is by far the fastest at loading.
 
dukeblue91 said:
The only reason I use Safari is due to the spellchecker, do any of the other browsers offer that capability?
Click to expand...

There'll be an extension somewhere for firefox, the google toolbar has one but it's not real time, u have spell check mode were it underlines everything which is wrong but u can't edit text, i don't like it.

Opera on windows has a spell check add on (asp spell?? I Think). So I guess there would be a mac version? For some reason i like opera on windows but not on mac even though there the same...not sure what it is. So when i use windows i'm using opera and when on mac mostly safari.
 
keithbennis said:
I've actually been using FireFox's "DeerPark", which is specifically made for G5's. It's pretty good.
Click to expand...

I could have sworn Deer Park was the code name for the Firefox 1.5 Beta line. Perhaps you're referring to the G5-optimized builds?
 
nostrum said:
I've got a 12 inch PB, which I bought last July running Tiger 10.4.5. The biggest problem with it is that it start to get very hot when I'm using certain browsers. Initially the problem was with Firefox, when using that to browse, CPU usage would go up to 100% and my machine would heat up to 50c to
55c occasionally hitting 60c. So I ditched that and started to use Camino, but I had the same problem. So then I switched to Safari same problem there.

I'm currently using Opera which seems to be ok, no overheating, but its the slowest of the four browsers that I've used.

Is this overheating typical of those browsers or am I just doing something wrong?
Click to expand...

Utilizing 100% of the CPU cycles depends on the sites being loaded in th
browser rather than the browser itself. For a browser to occasionally
hit 100% is normal but if it is always 100% then you have got a problem
elsewhere.

IMHO, on a Mac safari is the way to go. If Safari acquires Ad-blocking
capabilities it will render other browsers on the Mac platform useless.
I know there are adblocking addons for Safari but they are neither
free nor as powerful as the Adblock extension of Firefox. For
safari Adblocking, I use a custom CSS (instructions can be found
here). This technique eliminates about 85% of the Ads.

From my personal experience,
time to boot: Safari fastest, Opera fast, FF slow. FF on my machine
(G4 1.5Ghz with 1 gegs of RAM) feels very heavy.
Page Rendering: Safari fine, Opera fast, FF fast.
 
rdf8585 said:
Safari is a dog... Opera is the quickest (tho FF w/ Fasterfox comes close) while Camino is the prettiest.
Click to expand...
Agreed. But a lot of coding looks bad on Opera(and it's ugly). Camino is pretty, but the top part is sort of big... that's why I using Firefox.
Best for reading coding(IMO), fairly fast, and smmmaall top.
 
nostrum said:
I found Opera to be the slowest, but I am running v9.0 the technology preview, so that version may be slower?
Click to expand...

That would have to be the problem, I'm running 8.51 on my iBook and this thing flies in comparison to Safari and FF. If only it looked good... Also I notice this thing takes a fewer resources than either Safari or FF (unless you only have one tab open in Safari, then it's fine). I'd recommend Opera over all of the alternatives to anyone running OS X on PPC. Everything else just feels too slow to me.
 
keithbennis said:
I've actually been using FireFox's "DeerPark", which is specifically made for G5's. It's pretty good.
Click to expand...


I downloaded this last night for my iMac G5 2.1 GHz. I don't get it...It's the slowest out of the three browsers I have: Safari, Camino and it. It's certainly not optimized for my G5 anyways...Maybe for Dualies?
 
Web browsers

My Dual 2.0 G5 gets a bit funny when i change system performance levels.

At 'High Performance' I don't hear the fans rev up at all during normal browsing, just the squeeking :) . However, when I bring the performance to 'Automatic' I often hear the fans kick in abit when I open windows or tabs within Safari OR FireFox. At no point do I hit 100% or 200% CPU.

Something may be up with your machine - when was the last time you did a hardware test?

I am just itching to re-install Tiger on my machine, but know I won't be able to do that until I graduate from uni. Some minor glitches i have will go (tried other installs on an external FW disk) so I'll put up with it till then.

Stick with Safari though - nobody can optimize apps for G4/G5 like Apple can. (saying that, the H.264 is really bloody slow in comparison to x264 :confused: )

F
 
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