Filed under: OS, Software, Blogs
Is Safari a system resource hog?
A browser doesn't seem like it should have that adverse of an effect on one's system performance. Aside from the power users who surf for hours at a time and leave their browser running for days on end, one's browser shouldn't be dragging the rest of the class down.Macenstein, on the other hand, has used a few pseudo-scientific tests to determine otherwise. While the debate still rages as to which browser is the 'best,' or the fastest, or the least detrimental memory hog, Dr. Macenstein has apparently outed Safari as a fairly selfish system resource gobbler, able to slow at least some operations by 76 percent. The tests performed by the monster of all things Mac included a fairly tricked out G5 PowerMac, as well as Quad Core Mac Pro just for good measure. Just to round the tests out, Macenstein eventually added Camino and OmniWeb to the original test sequence of Safari and Firefox. These browsers were all tested separately against opening/saving a fairly hefty PSD in Photoshop, as well as rendering a project out of After Effects (remember: those two apps still have to run emulated in Rosetta on the Mac Pro).
The cliff notes results? In nearly every test, Safari (running in the background) was found to deal a significant blow to performance and efficiency, causing the three aforementioned operations to take noticeably longer. To make things even more bizarre, Safari was actually found to not affect performance when exporting a video for the iPod with QuickTime.
At the end of the day, no one is really sure why Apple's browser is making so many waves in the performance pool, but a healthy comment thread on the post is already hard at work. For anyone serious about Safari, here's hoping Apple is already aware of the issue and has brought their browser in line for Leopard.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Drew said 8:07PM on 2-27-2007
After about week 3 of my Mac days, I got tired of Safari. It looks cool, but it freezes way too much. It could be because of my lacking RAM, but I had to force quit it a lot.
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kshd said 8:13PM on 2-27-2007
A response from the webkit team
http://webkit.org/blog/?p=96
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Trausti said 8:16PM on 2-27-2007
I've been using Safari all my Mac life and I have to close it every hour or so because it starts to suck up too much memory. Right now its using 296.05 mb Real memory (out of 1.5gb) and 662.43 Virtual. Its currently on the top of the list of processes running using the most memory. I have around 25 RSS feeds and about 20 other bookmarks that I use every day. Its astounding how much memory it uses.
I've gotten so used to Safari that whenever I've tried Firefox or Camino it just gives me the heeby jeebies, so to speak.
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John said 8:22PM on 2-27-2007
I would definitely say that Safari is a resource hog. Just regular usage with only one tab open will spike the CPU usage to 20% by loading one page, and at times Safari will take up as much as several hundred megs of real memory and up to 1.5 gigs of virtual memory. I feel that this is way too much for a web browser.
However, I've tried just about every browser for the Mac platform, and after a long stint in Camino, I came back to Safari, and I feel like it's probably permanent. You simply just can't beat the Mac-native feeling that Safari gives. And for some reason, even though I know that it uses up more resources than the other browsers, it just feels lighter. Firefox feels clunky to me, and Camino would always hang when I tried to download files. Opera looks kinda weird, and even though it's pretty customizable, it never quite felt right and the web page rendering also seemed to have a different feel to it. Shiira showed promise, but it hasn't been updated in a while, and although the most recent beta had some really cool features in it, it wasn't really stable enough for normal use...
Anyways, I really do agree that Safari uses up far too many resources, and maybe leaving it open constantly causes this, but I'm going to stay a firm believer in the Safari camp for now.
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marc cardwell said 8:41PM on 2-27-2007
only some pages seem to take up cpu resources: when tuaw has some video on the home page, my fans come on. when i'm on google or many other pages, no fan. not sure why this does this, even when i've not played the video.
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Damien said 8:48PM on 2-27-2007
I do find that Safari locks up a lot on me. I cannot load too many intensive web-pages at one time.
For "The worlds best web-browser" that Apple keeps toating, glaring omissons stick out like a sore thumb.
High CPU usage, high memory usage, frequent lock ups, and other problems have me wishing for some reforms to Safari with Leopard.
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Bob said 9:01PM on 2-27-2007
In my experience, Safari is not the only browser you can accuse of being a resource hog. In fact, I would accuse practically every browser imaginable. Firefox can take up resources on either Mac or Windows. And don't get me started on Internet Explorer.
The point is this: we're still relatively early in the development of browsers, and it appears that resource sucking is part of the nature of the beast. If you read recent reports on Firefox 3.0, for example, we can expect to see some interesting changes ahead for many browsers that might be a trend toward browsers that tug less on valuable memory.
And too, embracing IPv6 and other protocols might help. One tip: Those plug-ins you love for your favorite browser (insert browser name here) are often the biggest culprit of all. If the code for the seemingly innocuous browser plug-ins is not properly written, they can be a huge resource drain. Sometimes, less is more.
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Tony Ward said 9:16PM on 2-27-2007
There are times (e.g., when I'm editing in Finale and Dreamweaver) that quitting Safari is like pushing a turbo button. Very frustrating, and I'm glad to see this article making a stink about it. IMO, if Apple doesn't get Safari's appetite curbed, then I think the 10.5 version should auto-quit when inactive. In reading the Webkit reply, I wonder if there can be an "Optimizer" tab in preferences to select what does and does not play in a given background window and/or tab.
Even with these flaws, I am hopelessly in love with Safari, even though I pimp Firefox endlessly to my Windows-imprisoned colleages. (Does that make me a bad person?)
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josh said 10:25PM on 2-27-2007
i thought it was a well known and accepted fact that safari was a resource hog? It needs to be restarted a couple of times a day as it gradually eats all your RAM (or sumthing).
Safari is the worst browser available for the mac, except for all the rest.
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icerabbit said 11:02PM on 2-27-2007
On days of active browsing & internet work; you have to quit and sometimes force-quit Safari to get back up to speed. It does slow down and will eventually crash on itself. Start a new session and all is well.
I couldn't agree more that view Flash viewing needs work. Even stupid flash ads cause the fans to throttl up quite considerably? Same goes when there is a PDF. I really think - given all the horsepower a DP G5 has - the machine should be able to stay quiet. It's not like it is something a G3 or G4 can't handle and requires a quad mac pro. Right?
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Graham Cox said 3:45AM on 2-28-2007
I recently started to notice my MacBook would ramp up its fans to wind-tunnel like proportions for no apparent reason. A quick look with Activity Monitor showed that it was Safari to blame - maxing out at least one of the processor cores. I couldn't discover what triggered Safari into this behaviour, but quitting it and bring it back up again would restore normality for a while. When this ocurred Safari remained usable, and it was only the fan noise that alerted me to the fact that something was going on. Now I run Activity Monitor all the time so I can nip this in the bud when it happens. Pretty sucky though.
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muaddib420 said 12:18AM on 2-28-2007
yup, i don't think safari itself is the problem, it's macromedia's flash for the mac. it's HORRIBLE. if there's any flash ads on the page, there's a huge spike in CPU use. and don't even get me started on flash video (like youtube or metacafe). one video and the fans are full blast. the nature of the beast i guess...
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Diego said 12:33AM on 2-28-2007
I couldn't figure out why my drive was constantly reading/writing or why I was always seeing the BBoD no matter what application I was using. Then I looked at the system resources. Safari was using over a gig of memory!
I don't like Camino, but I had to kick Safari to the curb.
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Fredrik said 2:15AM on 2-28-2007
Definitely a resource hog. I have one forum I use a lot, and when using Safari I have to Quit and launch 1-3 times per day, because it's like a leaky bucket. Just look at this, this is from a couple of hours surfing and with NO windows open.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/caldaean/405465067/
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michel said 2:40AM on 2-28-2007
a web navigator will use memory
of course
it will put all it can in cache. it's nORMAL. It should give back the memory if an other application actively used need more physical memory.
Virtual Memory is hem.. just "virtual". it's not so simple to say "my program use 1.5GB of virtual so it takes 1.5GB of memory" , of course not
it could be huge hundreds MB of memory shared by an other, it could be memory put in the swap disk (so your precious _physical_ memory is still free) and so on.
the main point is a program can use GB of memory , it's not bad, IF your actively used application has alwasy free physical memory to avoid to use the swap disk.
OS X makes complexes adjustments to avoid that. Safari (or Firefox) try to indicate to Os X when cached information can be put away from the physical memory into swap.
and Yes, Firefox is designed to grow its cache. its cache reaaaally help to improve speed. Of course it use memory , but not necessarily physical memory all the time.
We don't care about the "virtual memory" size. the virtual size encompass physical+swap+whatever shared+whatever system libraries or operating structures the applications need to exist. Many of that is not in the physical memory all the time. Many is in fact shared with others applications or even the core operating system.
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mkumemr said 3:35AM on 2-28-2007
I have a somewhat heavy Safari constellation here: on my 30'' Monitor I have to large windows open side by side, each with 8 tabs open. This monster eats up much memory and hangs sometimes. Its very comfortable, but if I use say Parallels, I have to close Safari first, to get fast performance...
mk
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k8jf6 said 8:56AM on 2-28-2007
The problem isn't Safari or any other browser. It's the web pages (including TUAW). My companies intranet home page is very complex and contains lots of information, but uses very few resources. Maybe the difference with the commercial sites is because of adware.
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Galley said 9:38AM on 2-28-2007
My Safari uses a crapload of RAM, but then again I often have 30-40 tabs open.
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Gareth said 10:09AM on 2-28-2007
So THAT's what the problem is. I was always blaming Textmate for the resource hoggery, but now I know the truth.
I think a bit more time in Camino should help me a bit.
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Eli said 10:18AM on 2-28-2007
Of course it's a resource hog. A web browser should not go from 50MB on start-up and then rise to anything from 250MB to 1GB of real memory during average use. As much as I loved Safari I had to stop using it because after barely an hour of use it was grinding my system down (I have 2GB of RAM).
I now use Camino which typically hovers around 75MB and my Mac is now far more responsive :)
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