Safari 4 slow, crash, shutdown problems? Three solutions to try...

Question

There are many posts addressing Safari 4's slowness and worse. I had these problems and cured them with three fixes:
1. Empty Cache periodically - Still tried and true. For me, a blank screen trying to load is the cue to empty cache - page then pops.
2. Turn off Top Sites. This "enhancement" consumes time and takes hard drive space. Someone suggested turning it off and then getting rid of the files (not folders) it had set aside. (They are located in home/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/Webpage Previews.) I found almost 3,000 files consuming about 600 MB residing there! They are simply saved web pages, so no hidden risks from deleting them. The next thing to do is keep Safari from saving new webpages. I found the simplest solution is to click on "Website Previews," then Get Info and change permission to "Read Only." I did these Top Sites actions in July. It really helped and I've had no problems.
Then, my Safari started slowing down again, frequently getting hung up (requiring Force Quit), and even crashing. Also, my computer was running hot. I turned on Activity Monitor in the Dock with CPU usage showing and saw the CPU was being driven up to 100% by some websites. Businessweek.com became my test site because it was so slow and invariably crashed Safari after a short while. The key seemed to be the number of Flash videos a webpage was trying to load, so I started a search for a cure. That led me to...
3. Install ClickToFlash (http://rentzsch.github.com/clicktoflash/). You can find others who have recommended it in the Apple discussions and elsewhere. Easy to download, it's unobtrusive and IT WORKS! Now, those Business Week pages load quickly with four(!) little white boxes labeled "Flash". There is a gear that gives you options: load flash, load all on this page, add -site- to whitepage (meaning always load flash on this website - this whitepage list can be edited), and ClickToFlash settings. It's quick and easy to turn on a flash. Now, my Activity Monitor hardly moves, and my computer runs cool.
Hope these help for you. For me, these solutions have cured my Safari problems - at least until Apple releases a new upgrade or version.
Message was edited by: John Tobey1
Message was edited by: John Tobey1

Answer 1

1. Go to Home/Library/Cookies and delete the Cookies.plist file.
2. Go to Home/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari and delete the contents of that folder.
3. Go to Home/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/Web Page Previews and delete the contents of that folder.
4. If you don't want to use the Top Sites or Cover Flow features, open Terminal and paste in this command:
defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSnapshotsUpdatePolicy -int 2
then press Enter or Return and quit Terminal
5. Go to Home/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari and delete the contents of that folder.
6. Go to Home/Library/Caches/Safari and delete the contents of that folder.
7. Go to Home/Library/Safari and delete these files (if you have them):
Downloads.plist
History.plist
Form Values
LastSession.plist
WebpageIcons.db
Then Repair Permissions, and restart Safari.