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Why is Safari such a RAM-hog?
- Thread starter MBX
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Have you repaired permissions, MBX?
Years ago, my Mail icon would bounce many times before opening, but otherwise worked great. Repairing Permissions did the trick.
Years ago, my Mail icon would bounce many times before opening, but otherwise worked great. Repairing Permissions did the trick.
If an application does has not been prebound to its frameworks, then it binds to its frameworks during its first launch. Apple has made enormous progress with this issue--just not on your system. For whatever reason, Safari was not prebound to its frameworks when you installed it. Binding to frameworks takes time. Once done, it should not need to be done again. Subsequent launches should be faster.
While I use Firefox, Safari loads the fastest of the 3 browsers I have installed. Endless bounces for Firefox to launch, 2-3 for Chrome, 1-2 for Safari. That's for the first launch in a new boot on a modest 5400rpm laptop drive.
Safari is a Hog
I have had Safari running now for about 3 days on my Mac. I have closed all the pages on it, checked my Activity Monitor, and it says that Safari is using 1.7GB of real memory. Yesterday when I checked, it was about 995MB. I have since opened only this window to check why it is ballooning out of control. There is definitely a leak somewhere.
I have had Safari running now for about 3 days on my Mac. I have closed all the pages on it, checked my Activity Monitor, and it says that Safari is using 1.7GB of real memory. Yesterday when I checked, it was about 995MB. I have since opened only this window to check why it is ballooning out of control. There is definitely a leak somewhere.
Safari needs to lose weight. Apple knows this and they'll come up with a few minor updates before hopefully wowing us with a new slimmer, sleeker Safari.
I tried Chrome, yeah it's quick, yeah it's user-friendly but it's also ugly as hell.
I tried Chrome, yeah it's quick, yeah it's user-friendly but it's also ugly as hell.
Chrome
You know, I actually like the way Chrome looks and how it combines the address and the search bar. There are techies out there screaming bloody murder over the combination of the two. I wasn't sure about it either at the beginning, but it grew on me and now I kind of wish Safari at least gave you the option to do the same time.
The reason I use Safari now is that Chrome is actually pretty slow and laggy once you get it going. It's a memory hog too, but not as bad. Anyways, use Google Reader to keep up with RSS feeds. After scrolling through news feeds for a few minutes, the entire browser start slowing to a crawl. I can literally scroll the mouse wheel, and grab a drink of water before it catches up. Safari blows Chrome away in this respect.
You know, I actually like the way Chrome looks and how it combines the address and the search bar. There are techies out there screaming bloody murder over the combination of the two. I wasn't sure about it either at the beginning, but it grew on me and now I kind of wish Safari at least gave you the option to do the same time.
The reason I use Safari now is that Chrome is actually pretty slow and laggy once you get it going. It's a memory hog too, but not as bad. Anyways, use Google Reader to keep up with RSS feeds. After scrolling through news feeds for a few minutes, the entire browser start slowing to a crawl. I can literally scroll the mouse wheel, and grab a drink of water before it catches up. Safari blows Chrome away in this respect.
I should also mention that even though Safari runs away with memory after a couple of days, it opens almost instantly for me. The dock icon doesn't even get to do a full bounce before the browser opens, but I've also got it set to open a blank page on start, which REALLY improved the start up speed. Having it load Top Sites for new windows and new tabs kind of brings it to a crawl in comparison.
I have mine set to open at top sites, and it still opens up instantly. Probably depends on your connection speed... I have a medium-speed 10 mbit.
I agree that Safari seems to eat up massive amounts of memory, mine usually hovers between 300 and 500 MB, however, I seem to remember that it loads links in the background in order to load new pages faster. That would explain why it use that much memory. And as long as you have plenty of memory available, 500 MB doesn't matter if it gets you a snappy browser. I'd rather have it eat up 20% of my memory than wait those couple of extra seconds every time I load a new page
I run Safari 5 on my windows laptop and my MBP. Both seem to respond rapidly and open up but, if I leave the file open for to long it begins to hog up memory. When I say to long I mean like a day or so.
Have you tried turning off the extra bits?
Top Sites and the RSS updates can really grind Safari to a slow drag - Believe me, on a MBA where every drop of system resource is needed, turning these off can save yourself a lot of time!
System Preferences --> General : New windows / Tabs - Make them open in anything EXCEPT Topsites
System Preferences --> Bookmarks : Deselect "Include Top Sites"
System Preferences --> RSS : Deselect Auto Updates On Both Bookmarks Menu And Bar. Also Set "Check For Updates" to Never.
Hopefully, this will stop unexplained slowdowns when surfing with Safari - Happy Browsing
Top Sites and the RSS updates can really grind Safari to a slow drag - Believe me, on a MBA where every drop of system resource is needed, turning these off can save yourself a lot of time!
System Preferences --> General : New windows / Tabs - Make them open in anything EXCEPT Topsites
System Preferences --> Bookmarks : Deselect "Include Top Sites"
System Preferences --> RSS : Deselect Auto Updates On Both Bookmarks Menu And Bar. Also Set "Check For Updates" to Never.
Hopefully, this will stop unexplained slowdowns when surfing with Safari - Happy Browsing
i think even when its in background, it still use that much memory.
first i don't believe firefox starts up using 150Mb memory, a screenshot may help.
second you should just use them for a while then check memory, surely OP is not saying any browser using 1.7Gb right from start.
Lastly, Firefox 4 has improved speed and stability drastically, On my RevA MB with 1.8Ghz CD, OSX 10.5, around 1 bounce is enough for it to start, try out beta 2 at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html
Why is this a problem? A problem is letting RAM in the computer go un-used. In software design there is a classic trade off. memory for speed. What you hope is that your browser is keeping the information you want to look at next in RAM. The more it does hold in RAM the higher the chance that what you want will be there.
Use of RAM can become a problem if some other program you are running also needs RAM and can't get it. But until that happens using more is likely a good thing.
Safari
Nice !!! I can touch the 2GB-mark quite easily after a bit of browsing, but I assume that's only limited by my total amount of RAM (4GB) I can't believe Apple's not fixing this memory issue, I feel they are terribly slow on improving their software lately (e.g. Safari/iWork/Mac OS). Apart from that, the browser is nice, but the amounts of RAM used are frustrating me. Hmmpff
Nice !!! I can touch the 2GB-mark quite easily after a bit of browsing, but I assume that's only limited by my total amount of RAM (4GB)
I can't believe Apple's not fixing this memory issue, I feel they are terribly slow on improving their software lately (e.g. Safari/iWork/Mac OS). Apart from that, the browser is nice, but the amounts of RAM used are frustrating me. Hmmpff
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Memory use like this is NOT a problem. What would be a problem is if there were free RAM that was not being put to some use. That would be a waste of resources.
It does become a problem if Safari were holding RAM and some other program that needed RAM could not get any. If you see that then complain that Apple needs to fix it.
I understand your point, and agree to some extent. however I feel 2GB+ (let alone 5GB) of memory use for a webbrowser with just a few tabs open, is an issue in my book. Certainly when it's performing sub-optimally as it does today...