It easily uses more than 750MB with merely 4 or 5 tabs open, and I have to quit and reopen it to make it use less than 300MB. Memory usage is probably the only gripe I have about Safari 4.
Huh. Is this on a Mac or PC? I wonder why your memory use would be so much higher?
Mines been sitting at 250MB since I downloaded it a week ago.
This is a slightly revised review I wrote for MacUpdate (in other words: copypasta):
I have now used Safari 4 for a couple of days full-time and would like to share my impressions with others now.
Advantages:
+ Let's get the obvious out of the way first: It's fast, page-loading times are quite low and web applications like Google Mail/Reader and others load and feel faster than with Safari 3.
+ Memory usage is quite improved. Safari 3 was always for me quite a memory hog which could grab easily 500+ MB after *one* day and it still kept climbing. Safari 4 uses 300-400 MB of RAM (give or take 40). This seems still much at first glance but at least it *stays* in that range even after extended use (several days without restart). After a couple of hours non-usage with few tabs open it even reached 200 MB again. My best guess is that the fixed amount of memory is used for caching preview images (top sites, cover flow history) and indices for full-text history search. Anyway, good work, Apple.
+ Safari now stalls less when some tabs are active (beach ball). It's still present but not quite as distinctive as with the predecessor.
+ Full-text search is quite useful and the cover flow makes it easy to locate the page one is looking for.
+ Scrolling is always smooth even with complex layouts or lots of active content (e.g. Flash).
+ In case of a tab overflow (too many tabs) the tab drop down list features a divider which separates the visible from the non-visible tabs. It's attention to detail like in this case which I like Apple for.
+ Tabs on top has been removed. The implementation was stillborn with too many apparent usability problems. Since there are more ways to tackle the problem tabs on top tried to solve (more vertical space for content) Apple should maybe take tabs in a sidebar into consideration.
+ Snap back has been simplified. I know that some people will rightfully (!) complain about this reduction in functionality but senile people like me are overburdened with the old implementation. Now it's more apparent what it is meant for (go back to Google results) and I started to use it more often.
+ Better result arrangement for matches in the address bar (see also negatives).
+ Very stable. I only had one crash and that was when trying to open 34 tabs at once. Now, the browser should still be able to handle this but otherwise I had no problems with stability.
+ MailGrowl works with the updated WebKit component again without crashing Mail each time a new mail arrives. Maybe there are some Growl users in Apple after all.
Disadvantages:
- I was hoping that Safari's address bar would work like Firefox' "Awesome Bar". To my disappointment you still can't do arbitrary substring search in the URL and site title. In fact, the address bar works exactly as in Safari 3 (matching only the start of an URL) but the results are presented in a much improved way.
- Top sites are slow. I use top sites with the maximum amount of previews and sometimes I have to wait up to 5 seconds until it's displayed after opening a new tab. There's also a small delay after selecting a site before it's displayed. A new tab should be instantly usable, something both Chrome and Firefox (in an version after 3.5) have identified as a critical UI requirement. Hopefully Apple will tackle this problem in one of the subsequent releases.
- Top sites in general don't add much to my browsing experience compared to visual history.
- One thing that really baffled me is that Safari 4 still uses the modal dialogue when asking if a password should be saved. The non-modal dialogue in Firefox and Chrome is such an *obvious* usability improvement. Maybe Apple shouldn't have messed around with tabs on tab and instead concentrated on less debatable improvements.
- Another annoyance: When the address bar or a text field is selected in a tab you can't use the keyboard to cycle through the tabs (you have to deselect it first). Firefox does this better.
- You still can't sort bookmarks alphabetically. In 2009. :-/
- Still no maximize window functionality. Fit to content simply does not work in a tabbed interface where each site has a different width.
- It's visually not clear enough when surfing a site with encrypted connection (https). Firefox and Chrome are better in this regard.
- Still no automatic restoration of the last session.
- There's still no obvious way for adding new MIME type handlers. I want Safari to open torrent files directly with my bittorrent client of choice.
- Removed the ability to always display the tab bar. I find it the appearing and disappearing of the bar distracting.
- Reopening a closed tab with its history is still not available.
Final thoughts:
This is a solid release, but it still has an apparent lack of ambition on the front end side. The major work was done on WebKit while the browser itself received mostly minor cosmetic work with some obvious improvements on other browsers being left out.
EDIT: Added two more disadvantages at the bottom of the list.
This is a slightly revised review I wrote for MacUpdate (in other words: copypasta):
I have now used Safari 4 for a couple of days full-time and would like to share my impressions with others now.
[?]
Final thoughts:
This is a solid release, but it still has an apparent lack of ambition on the front end side. The major work was done on WebKit while the browser itself received mostly minor cosmetic work with some obvious improvements on other browsers being left out.
Safari 4.0 notched 11 million downloads in just three days. While significant, this number is almost a rounding error compared with Firefox 3.0.11, which pulled down 150 million downloads in just 24 hours, as Mozilla's Asa Dotzler reports.
Kind of makes Apple sites ignorant for posting a huge success without doing a little homework first.
How on earth could Safari crash when you try to open the store link to buy a new Mac? Maybe Apple has the summertime blues like last year's implementation of Mobileme. No fix posted yet. Fortunately Firefox is not similarly handicapped.
Safari is at least better than IE, and an alternative to Firefox.
The 6 million may also explain why they changed back the tabs...I would imagine the PC switcher factor may be in play.
Sadly, IE is still the dominant web client platform. iTunes on Windows means Software Update is installed, Software update offers Safari as an option, so anyone that's willing to give it a shot can. Doesn't mean they'll use it for long.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brant
I thought it was really strange that they would strip out a feature from the beta. If the main stream is not up for tabs on top, at least make it an option in the preferences. Until then, I'm not updating from 4 beta.
Maybe it generated enough complaints? Given that Apple doesn't offer many user interface options, I'm surprised they offer tabs at all. They could just say each open page deserves its own window, and if you don't like it, use some other browser.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Spiffy1
I always get the feeling that Windows is intentionally screwing up Safari.
How about asking a couple slightly discerning questions first before producing unfounded statements? That prevents this foot-in-mouth syndrome. It's crashing on my Mac. Does that mean that OS X is intentionally screwing up Safari?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rokken
It's also frustrating to read these crash complaints while I haven't experienced a single crash since upgrading to Safari 4.0 in day 1. I always enable everything in preference, but still can't reproduce any crash.
Crashes pretty readily on a Mac Pro on Tiger. I haven't checked my MacBook Pro on Leopard.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Seahawk Fan 2
Safari 4.0 notched 11 million downloads in just three days. While significant, this number is almost a rounding error compared with Firefox 3.0.11, which pulled down 150 million downloads in just 24 hours, as Mozilla's Asa Dotzler reports.
Kind of makes Apple sites ignorant for posting a huge success without doing a little homework first.
I'm surprised they offer tabs at all. They could just say each open page deserves its own window, and if you don't like it, use some other browser.
Sometimes I think it would be better if they did. Tabs right in Safari right now feel like they have been added to the browser due to popular demand but with little enthusiasm by the interface designers. The tab cycling issue, no closed tab restoration, no permanent tab bar and no maximize functionality hint that window per site is still the preferred modus operandi. On the other hand Apple added fancy stuff like moving tabs between windows and experimented with tabs on top. It all feels a little schizophrenic as if two competing design teams worked on the Safari UI.
How on earth could Safari crash when you try to open the store link to buy a new Mac? Maybe Apple has the summertime blues like last year's implementation of Mobileme. No fix posted yet. Fortunately Firefox is not similarly handicapped.
For me and the two dozen or so people that I have direct knowledge of who are running Safari 4 this is not the case.
I'm not saying that it isn't happening for you, just that it seems to be far from some kind of overt and repeatable flaw in Safari per se, which seems to be what people are assuming.
Safari sucks on a G4. Stalls , stalls, stalls. uggh - why did I ever install it.
Go back to v3 or use Firefox. Despite the speed and thinness of the browser engine that allows WebKit to work on so many mobile OSes the app itself has been quite a beast since day one.
For me and the two dozen or so people that I have direct knowledge of who are running Safari 4 this is not the case.
Ugh. Spoke too soon. When attempting to do a search at Apple.com I consistently get a hang that requires force quitting (I suppose the search just might be incredibly slow, but I don't have the patience to wait it out, if so).
Have they announced that? I thought they generally had security support for the previous version for a while.
I am not very familiar with Apple's update policy to be honest other that they use to support the current and the previous OS X version with security patches. Safari 4 is available for both Tiger and Leopard as a mandatory download via the auto-updater and contains quite a lot of bugfixes, not only for Safari but also for frameworks which Safari uses. [1] My guess would be that Safari 3 as of now is unsupported.
I am not very familiar with Apple's update policy to be honest other that they use to support the current and the previous OS X version with security patches. Safari 4 is available for both Tiger and Leopard as a mandatory download via the auto-updater and contains quite a lot of bugfixes, not only for Safari but also for frameworks which Safari uses. [1] My guess would be that Safari 3 as of now is unsupported.
That hasn?t been the case with any version of Safari. Security updates, just like with previous versions of OS X come for some time after.
My question would be then: Where are the security updates for CFNetwork, WebKit and the other frameworks mentioned in the advisory which have been bundled with Safari 4.0?
Oh my, yes! To the point of unusability. What is more, it seems to take out the whole system - my Dock actually freezes while Top Sites is loading or whatever. I'm on a one pre-unibody Macbook Pro.
What is taking the processing power? ... update checks to generate those little blue stars? No way to turn them off, though.
Sloppy - very sloppy Apple. Have stopped using it, even though it was my main reason for upgrading so soon.
Comments
It easily uses more than 750MB with merely 4 or 5 tabs open, and I have to quit and reopen it to make it use less than 300MB. Memory usage is probably the only gripe I have about Safari 4.
Huh. Is this on a Mac or PC? I wonder why your memory use would be so much higher?
Mines been sitting at 250MB since I downloaded it a week ago.
Huh. Is this on a Mac or PC? I wonder why your memory use would be so much higher?
Mines been sitting at 250MB since I downloaded it a week ago.
It's on my Late 2007 iMac.
It's on my Late 2007 iMac.
Mysterious.
I have now used Safari 4 for a couple of days full-time and would like to share my impressions with others now.
Advantages:
+ Let's get the obvious out of the way first: It's fast, page-loading times are quite low and web applications like Google Mail/Reader and others load and feel faster than with Safari 3.
+ Memory usage is quite improved. Safari 3 was always for me quite a memory hog which could grab easily 500+ MB after *one* day and it still kept climbing. Safari 4 uses 300-400 MB of RAM (give or take 40). This seems still much at first glance but at least it *stays* in that range even after extended use (several days without restart). After a couple of hours non-usage with few tabs open it even reached 200 MB again. My best guess is that the fixed amount of memory is used for caching preview images (top sites, cover flow history) and indices for full-text history search. Anyway, good work, Apple.
+ Safari now stalls less when some tabs are active (beach ball). It's still present but not quite as distinctive as with the predecessor.
+ Full-text search is quite useful and the cover flow makes it easy to locate the page one is looking for.
+ Scrolling is always smooth even with complex layouts or lots of active content (e.g. Flash).
+ In case of a tab overflow (too many tabs) the tab drop down list features a divider which separates the visible from the non-visible tabs. It's attention to detail like in this case which I like Apple for.
+ Tabs on top has been removed. The implementation was stillborn with too many apparent usability problems. Since there are more ways to tackle the problem tabs on top tried to solve (more vertical space for content) Apple should maybe take tabs in a sidebar into consideration.
+ Snap back has been simplified. I know that some people will rightfully (!) complain about this reduction in functionality but senile people like me are overburdened with the old implementation. Now it's more apparent what it is meant for (go back to Google results) and I started to use it more often.
+ Better result arrangement for matches in the address bar (see also negatives).
+ Very stable. I only had one crash and that was when trying to open 34 tabs at once. Now, the browser should still be able to handle this but otherwise I had no problems with stability.
+ MailGrowl works with the updated WebKit component again without crashing Mail each time a new mail arrives. Maybe there are some Growl users in Apple after all.
Disadvantages:
- I was hoping that Safari's address bar would work like Firefox' "Awesome Bar". To my disappointment you still can't do arbitrary substring search in the URL and site title. In fact, the address bar works exactly as in Safari 3 (matching only the start of an URL) but the results are presented in a much improved way.
- Top sites are slow. I use top sites with the maximum amount of previews and sometimes I have to wait up to 5 seconds until it's displayed after opening a new tab. There's also a small delay after selecting a site before it's displayed. A new tab should be instantly usable, something both Chrome and Firefox (in an version after 3.5) have identified as a critical UI requirement. Hopefully Apple will tackle this problem in one of the subsequent releases.
- Top sites in general don't add much to my browsing experience compared to visual history.
- One thing that really baffled me is that Safari 4 still uses the modal dialogue when asking if a password should be saved. The non-modal dialogue in Firefox and Chrome is such an *obvious* usability improvement. Maybe Apple shouldn't have messed around with tabs on tab and instead concentrated on less debatable improvements.
- Another annoyance: When the address bar or a text field is selected in a tab you can't use the keyboard to cycle through the tabs (you have to deselect it first). Firefox does this better.
- You still can't sort bookmarks alphabetically. In 2009. :-/
- Still no maximize window functionality. Fit to content simply does not work in a tabbed interface where each site has a different width.
- It's visually not clear enough when surfing a site with encrypted connection (https). Firefox and Chrome are better in this regard.
- Still no automatic restoration of the last session.
- There's still no obvious way for adding new MIME type handlers. I want Safari to open torrent files directly with my bittorrent client of choice.
- Removed the ability to always display the tab bar. I find it the appearing and disappearing of the bar distracting.
- Reopening a closed tab with its history is still not available.
Final thoughts:
This is a solid release, but it still has an apparent lack of ambition on the front end side. The major work was done on WebKit while the browser itself received mostly minor cosmetic work with some obvious improvements on other browsers being left out.
EDIT: Added two more disadvantages at the bottom of the list.
This is a slightly revised review I wrote for MacUpdate (in other words: copypasta):
I have now used Safari 4 for a couple of days full-time and would like to share my impressions with others now.
[?]
Final thoughts:
This is a solid release, but it still has an apparent lack of ambition on the front end side. The major work was done on WebKit while the browser itself received mostly minor cosmetic work with some obvious improvements on other browsers being left out.
Nice balanced review.
Kind of makes Apple sites ignorant for posting a huge success without doing a little homework first.
Link
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10...g=2547-1_3-0-5
maybe because IE is that bad?
Safari is at least better than IE, and an alternative to Firefox.
The 6 million may also explain why they changed back the tabs...I would imagine the PC switcher factor may be in play.
Sadly, IE is still the dominant web client platform. iTunes on Windows means Software Update is installed, Software update offers Safari as an option, so anyone that's willing to give it a shot can. Doesn't mean they'll use it for long.
I thought it was really strange that they would strip out a feature from the beta. If the main stream is not up for tabs on top, at least make it an option in the preferences. Until then, I'm not updating from 4 beta.
Maybe it generated enough complaints? Given that Apple doesn't offer many user interface options, I'm surprised they offer tabs at all. They could just say each open page deserves its own window, and if you don't like it, use some other browser.
I always get the feeling that Windows is intentionally screwing up Safari.
How about asking a couple slightly discerning questions first before producing unfounded statements? That prevents this foot-in-mouth syndrome. It's crashing on my Mac. Does that mean that OS X is intentionally screwing up Safari?
It's also frustrating to read these crash complaints while I haven't experienced a single crash since upgrading to Safari 4.0 in day 1. I always enable everything in preference, but still can't reproduce any crash.
Crashes pretty readily on a Mac Pro on Tiger. I haven't checked my MacBook Pro on Leopard.
Safari 4.0 notched 11 million downloads in just three days. While significant, this number is almost a rounding error compared with Firefox 3.0.11, which pulled down 150 million downloads in just 24 hours, as Mozilla's Asa Dotzler reports.
Kind of makes Apple sites ignorant for posting a huge success without doing a little homework first.
Link
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10...g=2547-1_3-0-5
Most advertising is propaganda, the hope is that people don't remember the counterexamples.
I'm surprised they offer tabs at all. They could just say each open page deserves its own window, and if you don't like it, use some other browser.
Sometimes I think it would be better if they did. Tabs right in Safari right now feel like they have been added to the browser due to popular demand but with little enthusiasm by the interface designers. The tab cycling issue, no closed tab restoration, no permanent tab bar and no maximize functionality hint that window per site is still the preferred modus operandi. On the other hand Apple added fancy stuff like moving tabs between windows and experimented with tabs on top. It all feels a little schizophrenic as if two competing design teams worked on the Safari UI.
How on earth could Safari crash when you try to open the store link to buy a new Mac? Maybe Apple has the summertime blues like last year's implementation of Mobileme. No fix posted yet. Fortunately Firefox is not similarly handicapped.
For me and the two dozen or so people that I have direct knowledge of who are running Safari 4 this is not the case.
I'm not saying that it isn't happening for you, just that it seems to be far from some kind of overt and repeatable flaw in Safari per se, which seems to be what people are assuming.
Are you using plug-ins? What machine are you on?
Safari sucks on a G4. Stalls , stalls, stalls. uggh - why did I ever install it.
Go back to v3 or use Firefox. Despite the speed and thinness of the browser engine that allows WebKit to work on so many mobile OSes the app itself has been quite a beast since day one.
Go back to v3
Suggesting that is irresponsible as Safari 3 since Apple does not provide security updates for it anymore.
Suggesting that is irresponsible as Safari 3 since Apple does not provide security updates for it anymore.
Have they announced that? I thought they generally had security support for the previous version for a while.
For me and the two dozen or so people that I have direct knowledge of who are running Safari 4 this is not the case.
Ugh. Spoke too soon. When attempting to do a search at Apple.com I consistently get a hang that requires force quitting (I suppose the search just might be incredibly slow, but I don't have the patience to wait it out, if so).
Anyone else getting this?
Have they announced that? I thought they generally had security support for the previous version for a while.
I am not very familiar with Apple's update policy to be honest other that they use to support the current and the previous OS X version with security patches. Safari 4 is available for both Tiger and Leopard as a mandatory download via the auto-updater and contains quite a lot of bugfixes, not only for Safari but also for frameworks which Safari uses. [1] My guess would be that Safari 3 as of now is unsupported.
[1] http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3613
I am not very familiar with Apple's update policy to be honest other that they use to support the current and the previous OS X version with security patches. Safari 4 is available for both Tiger and Leopard as a mandatory download via the auto-updater and contains quite a lot of bugfixes, not only for Safari but also for frameworks which Safari uses. [1] My guess would be that Safari 3 as of now is unsupported.
[1] http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3613
That hasn?t been the case with any version of Safari. Security updates, just like with previous versions of OS X come for some time after.
That hasn?t been the case with any version of Safari. Security updates, just like with previous versions of OS X come for some time after.
My question would be then: Where are the security updates for CFNetwork, WebKit and the other frameworks mentioned in the advisory which have been bundled with Safari 4.0?
Oh my, yes! To the point of unusability. What is more, it seems to take out the whole system - my Dock actually freezes while Top Sites is loading or whatever. I'm on a one pre-unibody Macbook Pro.
What is taking the processing power? ... update checks to generate those little blue stars? No way to turn them off, though.
Sloppy - very sloppy Apple. Have stopped using it, even though it was my main reason for upgrading so soon.
It crawls and crashes. It takes forever to load.
I had to change my default browser to Firefox. My friend told me it was way faster, but he has an intel Mac.
Is this because I am using a G4? The old Safari was way faster then this for me at least.....wish there was something I could do.
Frank