Why does it take so long to load Apps?

[mm1250]

Hello All,

I have a MBP since mid-2007. Core-2 Duo 2.2Ghz 4GB RAM. When I first got the thing loading apps was fairly quick. Overtime apps like Firefox would take about 10-15seconds to load. So when Leopard came out I decided to do a clean format of the Mac. Well after boot up apps like Firefox or Mail still take lots of time to come up. (after it loads 1st time it is fairly quick to load back up since it's in memory). Is this normal on Macs? Should it take firefox about 15secs to load ?

Thanks,

 

[psxguru]

Firefox can seem slow to start especially if you have a lot of plugins/addons installed since it checks for updates to these when it starts.

 

[rekhyt]

(Are you talking about startup items which loads at login or when you just click it?)

Depends. Firefox maybe takes 10-15 seconds to load when I click on it. It used to be 5 seconds or faster but I stuffed it with addons and insane amounts of bookmarks so now it loads slow.

Chrome and Camino load insanely fast though. 0-1 second.

 

[miniConvert]

The first load of apps can be a bit slow, particularly Firefox or apps with a lot of 'stuff' in them like Mail. But really you should only be loading the app from scratch once - unless you're hitting the wall in terms of RAM you'd not Quit the app, even if sleeping the Mac.

You could try Safari, that's always nice and quick for me I know Firefox is Firefox and some folk just need it, but Safari, like much Apple software, is awesome if you give in to the Apple way and embrace the Steveness. You could upgrade to Snow Leopard, too.

 

[rekhyt]

The first load of apps can be a bit slow, particularly Firefox or apps with a lot of 'stuff' in them like Mail. But really you should only be loading the app from scratch once - unless you're hitting the wall in terms of RAM you'd not Quit the app, even if sleeping the Mac.

You could try Safari, that's always nice and quick for me I know Firefox is Firefox and some folk just need it, but Safari, like much Apple software, is awesome if you give in to the Apple way and embrace the Steveness. You could upgrade to Snow Leopard, too.

I think the OP wants to know about the problem/how it can solved/what's happening instead of upgrading to Snow Leopard.

Chrome could be fast but I'm really stumped on the problem right now.

 

[CubeHacker]

Well, since you wiped the hard drive and reinstalled the OS, that pretty much rules out any software issues. And your hardware has not slowed down since you first bought it. The only thing I can think of is your hard drive. Hard drives get progressively slower the more they are filled up. I don't have exact statistics, but a drive that is 75% at capacity might be anywhere from 25-50% slower than when its empty, especially in writes. Of course, I don't know if your drive is filled or not. There might be something else at work.

 

[rekhyt]

Well, since you wiped the hard drive and reinstalled the OS, that pretty much rules out any software issues. And your hardware has not slowed down since you first bought it. The only thing I can think of is your hard drive. Hard drives get progressively slower the more they are filled up. I don't have exact statistics, but a drive that is 75% at capacity might be anywhere from 25-50% slower than when its empty, especially in writes. Of course, I don't know if your drive is filled or not. There might be something else at work.

OMG Really?!?! That's why my hard drive's slower now. ¬.¬ 50GB out of 250. (320 originally, but gave XP 40GB and OSX took the rest. 10?)