I have been using Safari for like my whole life, and I have never seen it load websites so slowly as of 2026. Safari use to be the fastest browser in the world, but now it is clearly not. I have fast 200-300 Mbps WiFi, less than 20 ns latency, and a MacBook Air M2, and website still can like hang for 1-2 seconds before reloading even in fully cached websites, even on sights like Wiki or a old 1990s website like 1996 Park.org. Why is Safari so slow, especially for loading YouTube (5-6 seconds to load)? I use Chrome, and Chrome loads sites much faster, including YouTube. Safari also seems to use much more RAM too. You have 9 GB used before and then it goes to 11 GB used just opening a few tabs. Chrome also seems to work better with website compatibility too. I remember the 2020-2021 era with M1, I remember how fast and instant M1 Macs loaded websites, YouTube loaded in like less than a second. Now it feels like a Intel Mac again. How do I clear the junk or the cache in Safari? I can only see website history.
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Why is Safari such a slow browser compared to Chrome?
- Thread starter Red29359
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Have you turned off Hide IP address & Private Relay?
https://support.apple.com/guide/safari/sfri35610/
https://support.apple.com/102022
https://support.apple.com/guide/safari/sfri35610/
https://support.apple.com/102022
I ditched Safari more than 22 years ago and have used a variety of other browsers. Periodically, I will use Safari for a specific purpose but not for normal browsing.
Maybe find another browser? Aside from the fact that Apple just prefers that you use their apps, there is nothing except habit holding you back.
Maybe find another browser? Aside from the fact that Apple just prefers that you use their apps, there is nothing except habit holding you back.
That's why I use a Chromium browser on Mac. Safari isn't the best at all.
I only use it on iOS devices.
I only use it on iOS devices.
Dang. Light can only travel about 6 meters in 20 nanoseconds ... so you must be measuring from your machine to your router that's at the edge of your desk? 🤓
I use Safari 99% of the time, but a bank website I deal with doesn't play nice, so I have to use Chrome. I find that Chrome is slower than Safari, but I only use it for this one website.
Surely you could use any other Chromium-based browser -- Edge, Vivaldi, Brave, Opera -- preferably one that doesn't funnel everything back to Google?