[ladyharley01]

I noticed that when I switched to FireFox, all web pages loaded quickly. I believe it's just Safari that is slow and just getting slower.
I clean out my history and cache a couple of times a day also but I would like to know how to get rid of website icons like you mentioned? I love my iMac and will never go back to a PC but as you said, it's like having dial-up!!!
What's worse, I am very impatient especially when it comes to things that are suppose to work quickly.
I think I will start using FireFox and forget about Safari.
I'm going to contact Apple and tell them to get on the 'stick' and fix the problem with this browser. It's pretty sad when I see my son's PC opening pages like lightening and here I am with a very expensive Mac filing my nails while I wait for a window to open!!!!

[beanlynch]

I'm having a very similar problem. I've been using Safari for a number of years without any problem. About a month ago I decided to try out some shareward applications on my Mac and since then Safari gets so constipated trying to load that it ends up it ends up giving me this messsage: Safari could not open the page “http://..." because the server stopped responding.

I'm not entirely sure that the applications I downloaded are the problem but they were installed that same day prior to the problems. I also atempted to install Leopard but after the restart it wouldn't install because my internal DVD drive is down and my external drive doesn't have a connection that's fast enough. I wouldn't think this would have done anthing since the installation never got passed the restart but I thought it was worth mentioning just in case.

I've emptied the cache.

I've scanned for spyware.

Firefox loads at lightning speed but Opera won't load.

In case it may be the issue, below are the applications I installed that day. If any of you have one of these, bring it up. I haven't tried most of these yet but maybe the installation of one added something that's causing this issue.

Apimac Secret Folder 5.0

Apimac Timer '08

Check Off

Chipmunk

Get Tube

iCrypt

Pastor 1.7.5

Speed Freak

Tri-BACKUP 5

[dougoftheabaci]

Try removing all your extra apps that have anything to do with Safari.

[davepny]

Have you upgraded to Leopard yet? That solved all of my speed of loading issues. The next version of Safari is said to be even faster d/t improvements of some sort in Webkit. I DID have to buy another gig of RAM for my PowerBook... Leopard is a memory gourmand and will slow everything down if it's swapping memory to disk (and that happens a lot if you have less than a gig and a half). Go to MacSales.com (aka OWC) for memory.

A note: I installed Mac Office 2008 a few days ago and the entire system slowed down, it seemed. I don't see how or why... I checked the Activity Monitor and there are no MO 2008 processes running anywhere. The suite loads slowly, that's for sure.

Like I said, consider an upgrade to Leopard (but it has some bumps and twists that make life for older Macs a bit arduous) and a RAM upgrade.

[beanlynch]

Leopard slows things down, huh? Maybe I should wait til my next computer before I make that change then. I only have a Gig of ram and I'm not sure my G4 iBook can have more than that installed. I've managed to get a lot out of this iBook considering it's limitations. I found a patch that allows dual monitors like a powerbook and all of my graphics programs function at a good speed. I'd like to upgrade to Leopard but if it's going to affect the performance then I should probably wait. I'm living on a limited budget right now and I can't take on another voluntary expense at this time.

I normally use Firefox and Safari, each for different sorts of functions. I like the features of Firefox better, in general it interacts with some interactive content better than Safari. But Firefox hiccups more than Safari which runs very smoothly.

As far as I know none of these applications interact specifically with Safari. My concern is that when they were installed they added something to my system folder that affects the function of Safari so if I deleted the program I'd still have those issues. Does that make any sense?

[dougoftheabaci]

Well, for a start I would just drop Speed Freak. Unless you're running some process that requires all your system resources this is unnecessary anyway. Also, it could be pulling resources away from Safari which would be causing your intense slow-down. It's job is to "re-prioritise" your processes. That means pulling them away from one app and putting them to another one, something OS X kinda does on it's own.

[davepny]

Hello beanlynch,

I have to say that I used to add a bunch of software enhancers to my PB, but stopped. I ran into too many problems caused by the add-ons. The Mac Geniuses at my local Apple Store remarked that I'd loaded up the system with extras and that the processes were all running together and just generally slowed things down. Well, that's true for Dashboard widgets, etc., but I think the message was, just trust the basic software. I got rid of the add-ons (Cocktail, Safari Enhancer, etc.) and just ran the Apple apps as is. I had fewer crashes and hangs as a consequence. As I've said above, the speed of Safari can alter depending on where you are in the new OS evolution. With Panther and Tiger, Safari just ran slowly in the first version or two and then tweaks solved the speed issues. The first iteration of Safari under Leopard was the worst I'd ever seen for speed of page loading. But if you're running Tiger, you're really running the same browser as the Safari running under Leopard for me, aren't you? Something else may be the problem... have you checked with Activity Monitor to see if you're using disk memory? Sounds like it.

I think you're right not to upgrade to Leopard... my daughter has a mini that she is going to run using Tiger cause the mini's RAM = 512 Mbs. My wife's mini also ran fine under Tiger with 512 Mbs of RAM. With Leopard loaded (the minimum RAM config under Leopard is 512 Mb, but 1 Gb is recommended, I think), the mini crashes and is painfully slow running anything more than a single app or 2 at a time. Leopard doesn't slow things down really... in fact, now that I added a Gb of RAM to my PB, everything seems much snappier than I've experienced. But Leopard does have a higher memory overhead and if you don't have the RAM, Leopard goes to disk and that is slow (and I have a 7200 rpm drive!).

I've been to the Apple Store and the new Macs are so fast and whippy... I'm jealous and envious, but as many problems as I have, they are not close to the memory problems, slowdowns and issues I have running a maxed out PC at work.

[davepny]

I noticed I missed the question...

As far as I know none of these applications interact specifically with Safari. My concern is that when they were installed they added something to my system folder that affects the function of Safari so if I deleted the program I'd still have those issues. Does that make any sense?

Actually, it doesn't.

Probly just as well to delete them anyway and maybe do a clean install of the OS, if you have the patience and time. I reinstall about once a year and it clears out the cruft and makes everything quicker. Make sure you do 2 (not 1) separate backups before you do anything like this. And verify the backups too. You could do an Archive and Install with Tiger and that might help a lot. Again, please backup several times. The simplest and maybe the most effective thing to do is open Activity Monitor and keep an eye on memory allocation. If you use widgets at all... they seem to use memory even if Dashboard is not is use. All of the little buggers add up to a major memory drain. I had 768 Mb of RAM on my PB and found out that the Dashboard widgets and Leopard and even a couple of open apps put me right into the red zone...

[milehigh]

Have an original 17" Powerbook 1GHz G4 with 1 GB memory. Before installing OS 10.5.2, memory was increased to 2 GB (matched 1GB pair). Safari 3.0.4 was loading extremely slow. After doing all the troubleshooting tips on this forum and elsewhere, there was not much improvement in Safari's loading speed. For kicks, I pulled the fresh 2 gigs of memory and replaced it with the original 1 GB (2 X 512MB sticks). Bingo, Safari is blazing fast. Go figure?

At the same time I have a 20" iMac 1.8 GHz G5 that's been running great since Jan 2004 on 1GB of memory and OS 10.3.9. Decided to upgrade to 2GB of memory on this machine prior to installing OS 10.5 onto a brand new 500GB (WD) internal hard drive. This was a fresh erase and install booting from the OS 10.5 retail disc loading strictly Leopard onto the formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled) hard drive. iLife '08 was installed and all software updates were accomplished including 10.5.2 (combo update). Basically, this is like a new machine with freshly installed applications and no transfered or archived data. A quick check of the applications shows them all working, but with not tested with much data, music or video.

Now, the iMac is sharing the same cable broadband/Airport network as my previously mentioned Powerbook, a private network that's been running trouble free for over 4 years. Firewall security was set to allow all incoming connections on both machines.

Safari 3.0.4 running on the iMac is simply tortoise slow. Comparing to dial-up, it's probably worse. In that I've done all the troubleshooting tips mentioned on this forum with no success, I'm going to pull the 2 GB memory (2 x 1GB sticks) next and install the original 1 GB memory (2 x 512MB sticks), as I did on the Powerbook, to see if this yields a solution.

It surely seems odd that there's such a disparity in Safari 3.0.4 performance on two machines using the same exact private network. Even more interesting is the possibility that the increased memory (possibly bad memory) may be part of the problem in my case. Probably just a fluke!

Overall, Safari has been less than impressive since its introduction. As in the past, it's wise to have one of the popular alternate web browsers on board for when Safari 3.0.4 eventually slows, locks-up, crashes, or otherwise fails. When it comes to browsers, Apple just can't seem to get it right.

[davepny]

Yep, that's my impression also, that Safari's evolution is ups and then downs. If you want to try the Webkit beta, said to be really fast, go to this link and load up:

http://www.macrumors...oosts-snappier/

and

http://www.macrumors...ebkit-features/

Please note, the Webkit builds "are not entirely stable."

In other news, Apple released a Safari seed that addresses performance issues. But why not just use Camino or Firefox?

MileHigh, where did you get your additional RAM? Had any crashes lately? I recall that Safari had some DNS issues in the past, but they were unrelated to hardware.

[beanlynch]

Somehow the issue resolved itself for me. I don't know what I did
but I went into my internet connection setting in the system preferences. I
really didn't make any changes, I just made sure everything was set
where it was supposed to be and then after that it just started working
fine again. I'm not sure I did anything at all but it was like a plumbing clog suddenly broke loose.

I have a couple of questions for people based on their responses to my questions:



1. So if I just throw the application in the trash, that'll remove all the adverse effects of that application?

2. How much memory does Dashboard use? I use it occassionaly but hardly at all and if it's sucking memory I'd just assume turn it off. Like I said, things run pretty smooth but I do deal with some huge Photoshop files and reducing any pauses I can is definitely a plus.

[milehigh]

davepny,

The memory is (2 sticks) Crucial 1GB 200-Pin DDR SO-DIMM DDR 333 (PC 2700) purchased from Newegg. Curiously the memory tested OK using Rember 0.3.4b, however, it gets that "invalid memory access" message when using AHT. Don't believe the Safari slowness issue is a memory problem now as it appears Murphy's Law has come into play.

On my wireless network I have an Airport Extreme Base station upstairs and an Airport Express expanding range downstairs. Discovered my upstairs iMac, which had slow Safari loading, was connecting to the downstairs Airport Express. At some point I had recycled my modem and Airport Extreme by unplugging them, then powering back up. When the upstairs portion of the network was off, the iMac automatically acquired and connected to the downstairs Airport Express. When I brought the upstairs portion of the Network back on line, the iMac was still using the downstairs signal (the last network automatically joined), thus due to the increased distance, the data rate was lower causing Safari to crawl.

When I unplugged the Airport Express downstairs, the iMac then connected to the upstairs base station, which is in very close proximity, and Safari began loading (relatively) fast. In retrospect, this must have been the problem with Safari loading slow on the PB before I swapped memory.

The Network Preferences panel under Leopard doesn't have a signal strength meter as in earlier versions, so I discovered the signal/data issue by trial and error. It wasn't making sense to me that Safari 3.0.4 was working fine on the Powerbook and not the iMac given the OS was freshly installed on both computers. Once I powered up the Network in sequence - Cable Modem, Airport Extreme Base Station, then Airport Express - Safari is working reasonably fast on both computers - with each computer connecting to its nearest wireless station.

What I ended up doing is reconfiguring the Airport Express (remote) by adding a numeral onto the Network name. In other words, the base station is named Yellowscarf, the express (remote) is named Yellowscarf6. The ID numbers of the stations establish the WDS network, not the name, so now I can distinguish between base and remote by their different names which show up on the menu bar or when I open the Network Preferences window.

In any event, for those of you who have a wireless network with one or more remote stations, it would behoove you to double-check that your computer is receiving the closest station for best data rate, thus best browser speed. Obviously, there are other issues that may slow Safari, but for me it turned out to be my wireless network.

Beware of Murphy - he strikes in many different ways!

[durian]

I solved my original problem about safari loading slow.

Replace my 512MB memory with 2 GB and now my macbook works as fast as my PC.

Another thing worth considering is to upgrade the harddisk which I did. Got a 160 GB Toshiba drive. Lot;s of room to spare.