Surfing On A Mac Is Slooooow

135

Comments

  • Reply 41 of 98
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    It's probably AntiAliasing among other things.
  • Reply 42 of 98
    Quote:

    The window jerking is because OSX dynamically adjusts the content in the window whilst resizing, where as windows doesn't adjust the size until you release the mouse button.



    You need to use Windows more. Just kidding. But Windows actually does adjust window content while resizing.



    However, in general, Windows does less work to draw content on the screen. Graphics are not double buffered, and applications tend not to make use of the compositing and transformations found frequently on OS X. I think you'll find that in Windows applications that use more intensive graphics functions, window resizing speed takes a hit. MSN Messenger 6, for example, is fairly choppy.
  • Reply 43 of 98
    mikefmikef Posts: 698member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Placebo

    It's probably AntiAliasing among other things.



    I would definitely agree. I think the whole graphic subsystem is slow. If this were solely a Safari problem, then Firefox would be faster but it is not.
  • Reply 44 of 98
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Placebo

    It's probably AntiAliasing among other things.



    This is what I was thinking, as well.

    I've also noticed most websites look like shit on the PC (probably due to the antialiasing.) I'd rather wait and have a nicer page to look at.
  • Reply 45 of 98
    mikefmikef Posts: 698member
    You're putting a positive spin on slow web browsing? Wow...



    BTW, on my PC, my anti-aliasing works great and Firefox is still faster than on my (faster) Mac.



    Next...
  • Reply 46 of 98
    jonejone Posts: 102member
    As a test, just try Gamespot, oh man is the difference striking. It is very hard to keep a straight face when showing off my Mac to my PC buddies when they visit this site. I too hope Tiger clears this up (heck even 10.3.7), although I fear it is wishful thinking.



    The window resizing is normal though, you'll get jerkiness in Windows XP as well doing this (however, using the classic theme in Windows, the jerkiness is gone...weird).



    There are other things I've noticed too, like switching to another window while a web movie or vizualization is going, the movie becomes jerky. Does OS X have some pretty primitive multitasking?



    And another thing with Safari is that holding the scollbar causes all animated images to halt, and animated images in general cause the computer fans to go nuts. I smell some inefficiencies somewhere.
  • Reply 47 of 98
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    Have people mentioned the FUBARed javascript in current versions of Safari? I know Safari 2 in Tiger is supposed to improve on this, but right now sites can really bog down from that.
  • Reply 48 of 98
    mikefmikef Posts: 698member
    FWIW, I've stopped using Safari (an application I *wanted* to like but couldn't put up with any longer) and now use Firefox as my primary browser.



    I cannot believe the claims Apple made about how fast Safari is/was supposed to be. It's a bloody joke, as is the whole Mac browsing experience so far. There is certainly plenty of room for improvement.
  • Reply 49 of 98
    Quote:

    Originally posted by JonE

    As a test, just try Gamespot, oh man is the difference striking. It is very hard to keep a straight face when showing off my Mac to my PC buddies when they visit this site. I too hope Tiger clears this up (heck even 10.3.7), although I fear it is wishful thinking.



    Blame Gamespot for having so many ads and Macromedia for having such a crappy Mac Flash plugin.



    Quote:

    Originally posted by JonE

    There are other things I've noticed too, like switching to another window while a web movie or vizualization is going, the movie becomes jerky. Does OS X have some pretty primitive multitasking?



    No. You need to be more specific in your complaint for us to identify the problem. OS X's threading is (at the least) better than Windows' and has nothing to do with this (like I said before). It may a problem with threading in Safari, since Safari is poorly threaded.



    Quote:

    Originally posted by JonE

    And another thing with Safari is that holding the scollbar causes all animated images to halt, and animated images in general cause the computer fans to go nuts. I smell some inefficiencies somewhere.



    Animated gifs are a problem for Safari for some reason (I'd guess the poor threading) but the scrollbar thing is intentional. It allows for faster scrolling, especially on slower machines.



    Quote:

    Originally posted by mikef

    I cannot believe the claims Apple made about how fast Safari is/was supposed to be. It's a bloody joke, as is the whole Mac browsing experience so far. There is certainly plenty of room for improvement.



    Safari's rendering engine is extremely fast, and will get faster and more full featured overtime. Safari, as an application, however, has several deficiencies. None of the areas benchmarked touch on these deficiencies, so Apple's benchmarks are accurate. To characterize it as a 'joke' is just stupid.
  • Reply 50 of 98
    jonejone Posts: 102member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Thinine

    Blame Gamespot for having so many ads and Macromedia for having such a crappy Mac Flash plugin.



    I only see a few ads, and no more flash than most any other website. Most of the content is related to the website itself. But I see how it is, it's anyone but Apple's fault. Gamespot is just too elaborate. The fact that Windows renders it smooth as silk is completely dismissive and should not be a cause for question.



    It isn't just Safari BTW, it's all browsers. Can table inefficiencies be at the system level?
  • Reply 51 of 98
    tinktink Posts: 395member
    It's my understanding that large complicated tables choke Safari. I've heard of other people trying to display large amounts of data in tables also running into slow rendering times.



    Javescript is slow as well.



    Apple has a cool web developer list where you can get a lot of advise quickly. Client-side and server-side Web and Internet development on the Macintosh.

    I remember a few months back a discusion in the group related to this very issue. I haven't had time to keep up reading the list though.



    Here is an index of the Apple hosted developer groups, some of which may help too.



    Good luck.
  • Reply 52 of 98
    xflarexflare Posts: 199member
    WOW.......after reading all these posts, it's pretty much put me off switching to a Mac
  • Reply 53 of 98
    You don't want to, say, actually try a Mac first?



    Safari's JavaScript performance will increase many fold when Apple releases Safari 1.3 or when you upgrade to Tiger. The new JavaScript engine is really damn fast.



    As for Gamespot, it's likely a combination of the Flash ad in the middle of the page, poor HTML and CSS (both are incredibly invalid), and other animations that make it so slow.
  • Reply 54 of 98
    tinktink Posts: 395member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by xflare

    WOW.......after reading all these posts, it's pretty much put me off switching to a Mac



    The slow downs in browsing that I was referring to are in specific specialized situations and I personally have not experienced the issue. Javascript hasn't been a noticeable performance issue for me either.



    On a side note, the fact that I don't have or have needed a spyware blocker or virus protection on this laptop for the last 2 years is enough reason (one of many) that I enjoy Macs.
  • Reply 55 of 98
    Quote:

    Originally posted by xflare

    WOW.......after reading all these posts, it's pretty much put me off switching to a Mac



    The vast majority of mac users do have no probs at all concerning rendering speed. This is utter BS. Perhaps there are some rare circumstances, where safari doesn't do well. Who cares? I am talking about webpages you'd probably never touched deliberatly, except somebody put this particular page onto you and says: look, this page renders slow on the mac. Naw.

    What did i say? Who cares. Anybody can create circumstances to teach you red is green.



    Best.
  • Reply 56 of 98
    mikefmikef Posts: 698member
    And people can continue denying that web surfing is slow on the Mac... when CNN.COM renders faster on my slower PC notebook than my iBook, there is a definite problem.



    To insinuate that people experiencing poor performance are going to off-beat web sites is just plain ignorant.
  • Reply 57 of 98
    tinktink Posts: 395member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by tink

    The slow downs in browsing that I was referring to are in specific specialized situations and I personally have not experienced the issue. Javascript hasn't been a noticeable performance issue for me either.



    On a side note, the fact that I don't have or have needed a spyware blocker or virus protection on this laptop for the last 2 years is enough reason (one of many) that I enjoy Macs.




    Just to add a couple more comments about Safari here.



    Remember also that Safari is still in version 1 and as such already is a really killer browser with a pop up blocker, tabbed browsing and other goodies as well as really fast and smooth rendering in most cases.



    Safari goes toe to toe with any other browser out there which is very respectable for any browser let alone a version 1 browser. All of the competition are all in some way or another already in version 4 to 7+ already.
  • Reply 58 of 98
    xflarexflare Posts: 199member
    hmmmm.....I think i'll just stick with my 4 year old PC for the time being then. I don't want to spend a fortune on a new computer and find that it's slower than the one it's replacing.
  • Reply 59 of 98
    Fine, be an idiot. Like I said before, you may want to actually use a Mac before you make up your mind.
  • Reply 60 of 98
    Quote:

    Fine, be an idiot. Like I said before, you may want to actually use a Mac before you make up your mind.



    On the contrary.

    Fools learn from their own mistakes. Smart people learn from other's mistakes.
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