Safari 5 - A Big Memory Hog

Safari 5 hogs memory up to a point where it slows down the whole system and provokes freezes by the dozen -- on my system with 4 GB of RAM no other software is as often "unresponsive" as Safari.
Safari's memory usage starts with about 150 MB real memory (plus the same amount in virtual memory) and after some browsing gobbles up to 1 GB (Firefox and Chrome never exceed 120 MB). Then all other open programs as well as the Finder slow down to a crawl.
I haven't installed any plugins or extensions other than those loaded with the standard Safari installation. I use ClickToFlash to avoid Flash content. And I also go regularly through all the motions like permission repair, cache emptying (which I do several times a day), Onxy etc.
The only remedy currently is optimizing the memory with the iFreeMemory utility (recommended!!!).
I'm amazed that nothing has been done in to solve this problem in Safari 5 although this is a known issue since Safari 4.

I experience this memory problem too, but since a few days only. I never registered Safari using that much memory before, however it managed to fill my whole 4 GB of RAM several times in the past days.
I tried to apply the classic advice you get in online forums, like permission repair and cache emptying, but these measures could only delay the problem. Deactivating the extensions "adblock" and WOT didn't help.
Moreover, I originally bought a mac in order to not need to do such work anymore...^^.
Is there any further advice available on this subject, else than getting back to using firefox (I really like the speed and appearance of safari)?
Thank you in advance.

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Why is Safari such a memory hog?

I brought up the activity momitor on my 20" Core Duo, just to see how memory was being used (I have full 2GB). I was rather shocked to see that the leading user of both real and virtual memory was Safari: 598MB real/958MB virtual. Second on the list was the SystemUIServer with 538MB real/880MB virtual. After that, things dropped off significantly with other open (though not being actively used) programs like Word, Entourage, Preview, etc. using well under 100MB each of real memory and 500MB or less of virtual memory. Out of my 2GB RAM, about 1.3 GB was actively being used (wired and active), with 550MB inactive and 150 free. My VM size was 13.5 GB. I can see why boosting RAM makes a huge difference in performance!
This type of usage must be something specific to the Core Duo, because I have the same OS (10.5) running on my Pismo powerbook (with 1GB RAM) and its numbers are paltry by comparison: highest user: Mozilla, at 160MB/477MB, followed by the system (kernal task) at 63MB/775MB (real/virtual). Out of the 1 GB, only 200MB was active(120MB)/wired(75MB), with 470MB inactive, and 350MB free. My VM was only 4.2GB (with basically all the same applications active: the chief difference being Mozilla instead of Safari as the browser). It should be noted that in both cases Tabbed browsing is being used with about 7 tabs in each browser (actually, 7 tabs in Safari, 10 in Mozilla).
For those "in the know", does this seem normal? And is the key difference here the way the Core Duo processor handles memory? Or is it also just a matter of the more memory available, the more it will use? (Something is definitely different, though because the CD is using about 60% of actual RAM (wired/active), whereas the Pismo is only using about 20%).

Hello John61254,
i do find the Safari memory usage a bit large on your message, how many safari windows/tabs is opened? long history since you last started safari?
How much is safari taking memory just after starting it? I surfed quite long on this (core duo 17" with 1,5Gb memory) and i have >140mb real and 380 virtual on safari.
You might want to try reset caches with example Onyx
Another thing, do you have any addons/plugins on safari installed wich could be PPC based( on second tought these might not run unless you start safari with rosetta ).
On VM size i wouldnt be worried about, its IMHO running quite smoothly for the user.

Safari as memory hog

I recently read in this forum that "Safari is a memory hog". Exactly how do I determine now much memory Safari is using? Does the amount of memory used increase with usage or over time?
Any help/infor would be much appreciated.
Dave

I recently read in this forum that "Safari is a
memory hog". Exactly how do I determine now much
memory Safari is using? Does the amount of memory
used increase with usage or over time?
Any help/infor would be much appreciated.
Dave
Oddly, I don't really see that on any of my systems. What I do see is an occasional site that causes Safari to go nuts, using all available memory. I've seen that today on the Washington Post opinion pages. Not the opinion home, but if I go to any of the columns themselves, my memory gets maxed out, with Safari using >90% of available memory.
Strange...
Dave Fritzinger

ML, Memory hog?

OK, I'm strongly considering the low end MBP Retina, my dilemma is 8 vs 16gb memory especially since they can't be upgraded later. I'll be doing some photo & video editing on an enthusiats level, not pro or particularly savvy amateur BUT, it appears Mountain Lion is a memory hog.
Any feedback or suggestions appreciated

Lion was a pretty big memory hog. I would highly recommend it especially if you are planning on keeping the machine for more than 2-3 years as at that point the machine will probably be falling behind because newer operating systems will most definitely require more ram than current ones. Lion will load as much as it can into ram so I would highly suggest it!

Firefox on Win 7 64 bit is a big memory hogger; on Win 8.1 32 bit, it's not

As above; I have several PCs, on two of which I use FF regularly. One PC has Win 7 64-bit as OS while the other has Win 8.1 32-bit as OS.
I noticed that Firefox on Win 7 64-bit is a big memory hogger, sometimes eating up more than 2GB of RAM and obviously getting into an overflow of some sort after prolonged use. It essentially has some problem regarding memory or chache management, as closing tabs does not lower RAM consumption. It is not possible to leave FF open for days without experiencing this error. In Task Manager, I noticed that when the overflow occurs, FF keeps increasing its memory consumption.
On Win 8.1 32-bit, the above problem does not exist. Closing tabs lowers memory consumption, an overflow does not occur, and leaving the window open for days does not affect performance.
Can anyone help?

Memory leaks are almost always caused by plugins or add-ons. These leaks can be solved by performing a ''Clean reinstall''. This means you remove Firefox program files and then reinstall Firefox. Please follow these steps:
'''Note:''' You might want to print these steps or view them in another browser.
#Download the latest Desktop version of Firefox from [https://www.mozilla.org mozilla.org] (or choose the download for your operating system and language from [https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/all/ this page]) and save the setup file to your computer.
#After the download finishes, close all Firefox windows (or open the Firefox menu [[Image:New Fx Menu]] and click the close button [[Image:Close 29]]).
#Delete the Firefox installation folder, which is located in one of these locations, by default:
#*'''Windows:'''
#**C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox
#**C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox
#*'''Mac:''' Delete Firefox from the Applications folder.
#*'''Linux:''' If you installed Firefox with the distro-based package manager, you should use the same way to uninstall it - see [[Installing Firefox on Linux]]. If you downloaded and installed the binary package from the [http://www.mozilla.org/firefox#desktop Firefox download page], simply remove the folder ''firefox'' in your home directory.
#Now, go ahead and reinstall Firefox:
##Double-click the downloaded installation file and go through the steps of the installation wizard.
##Once the wizard is finished, choose to directly open Firefox after clicking the Finish button.
More information about reinstalling Firefox can be found [[Troubleshoot and diagnose Firefox problems#w_5-reinstall-firefox|here]].
<b>WARNING:</b> Do not use a third party uninstaller as part of this process. Doing so could permanently delete your [[Profiles|Firefox profile]] data, including but not limited to, extensions, cache, cookies, bookmarks, personal settings and saved passwords. <u>These cannot be easily recovered unless they have been backed up to an external device!</u> See [[Back up and restore information in Firefox profiles]]. 
Please report back to say if this helped you!
Thank you.

Apple Video Trailers not working/Memory Hog

Hello,
When I go to apple.com/trailers, the trailers do not display I keep seeing that grey wheel turn endlessly. When I try to view it in Firefox, it works perfectly fine. Anyone know why Safari would be doing this?
Another issue that I have is that Safari eats up memory. I saw it once hit 750mb and it keeps growing without getting any smaller. Does anyone know why?
Thanks!

I know this is an older post, but I've been tearing what's left of my hair out over the past couple of hours trying to find the cause to exactly the same problem described above (restarts did not fix the problem for me):
Going to "www.apple.com/trailers" in Safari produces the grey spinning sprocket-wheel where the trailer titles are supposed to be (lower half of the window). I can't seem to fix this (reinstalled Safari, deleted a bunch of plug-ins and preference files, etc etc). This problem does not reproduce in Firefox 3, where the page loads fine. I know this started happening sometime in December but I didn't pay much attention to it, but now I'm wondering if it all started with the Safari 3.2.1 update in late November.
If anybody has any clues that might help fix this, that would be awesome. Thanks !!
Message was edited by: Jareer

Save a big memory object to fi

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thanks,
ff

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ff

Photoshop CC Memory Hog ...

Photoshop CC is a Memory Hog ... I have 4GB and PS CC is the only thing open my ram drops to like 895mb free...

Definitely more RAM would be ideal -- but only useful with a 64-bit OS. You can adjust the amount of memory the OS will allow PS to use in Photoshop Preferences > Performance if you need to work with the system config you have and need ram allocation change to help with performance problems with PS or other applications.
You might find this article of interest (written for CS6 but should generally apply for CC).
http://blogs.adobe.com/crawlspace/2012/10/how-to-tune-photoshop-cs6-for-peak-performance.h tml

Big memory usage in NetStream

After some checking about our player memory usage - we descovered that when appendingBytes() into a netStream - it takes about 10-15 times the size (in Bytes) of the original video file from which we have read. Is there any way to lower this big memory consumption?
Moreover - is there any way to "dispose" the buffer that was already played by appendBytes()?
I tried to set inBufferSeek to false and maxBufferTime to 1. it doesn't seem to have any effect.

Define "huge memory". Oracle generally requires a couple of hundred Mb of RAM.
You can certainly change these services to start manually so long as you don't want your database to be running automatically.
Justin
Distributed Database Consulting, Inc.
http://www.ddbcinc.com/askDDBC

CS2 Memory Hog

Is it just me or is Photoshop CS2, including the Bridge, a terrible memory hog!!

"384MB of RAM to run any one creative application with Adobe® Bridge
and Version Cue® Workspace
Additional RAM required to run multiple applications simultaneously
(512MB to 1GB recommended) "
By the way, are you using the Photoshop SDK, a programmer tool? If so,
please focus the question so the people here know how you are using
it. If you aren't using the Photoshop SDK, I recommend asking in the
general Photoshop (Windows or Mac) forum.
On the list of forums in http://www.adobe.com/support/forums.html the
general Photoshop section, for Windows or Macintosh, is called "Adobe
Photoshop® & Adobe ImageReady®", 5 lines up from Photoshop SDK.
Aandi Inston

Applemobiledevice memory hog

memory hog - how do we fix ??

Try this,
Close your iTunes,
Go to command Prompt - START/ALL PROGRAMS/ACCESSORIES, right mouse click "Command Prompt", choose "Run as Administrator".
In the Command Prompt box, type in
netsh winsock reset
Hit "ENTER" key
Restart your computer.
Now check if it is ok now.

Lightroom 2.3RC and Fast MBP Mac 10.5.6 Still Has BIG Memory Issue

Lightroom 2.3RC still have a big memory issue on my Macbook Pro (Feb 2008) with 4GB of RAM both in 64bit and 32bit mode. After working on photos in a catalog (using Activity monitor) Lightroom causes my Free Memory to hover around only 10MB or less (causing Lightroom to continually hang or crash) while Inactive RAM sits at 1.5GB! Lightroom should be using this Inactive RAM rather than taking my Free RAM down to nearly nothing and causing freezes or crashes.
This is not as much of a problem in 2.2 32bit mode, but is a problem on 2.2 64bit mode. However, now with 2.3RC this is a problem on both the 32 and 64bit modes. Please Adobe address this huge huge huge memory problem in Lightroom. Why does Lightroom 2.2 32bit handle memory pretty okay but not Lightroom 2.3RC 32bit mode or 64bit mode? Why did 2.3RC break what for the most part worked in 2.2 32bit mode (even though that wasn't too great either).
Also I am only running Lightroom (no other programs). I admire the product Adobe, but this problem has persisted far too long and is making Lightroom unusable.

Hmm. I've been sticking with 2.1 until hearing widespread reports of stability. Every time I checked the forums, I didn't like what I heard about 2.2 so I stayed away. I dropped by to see what the Mac users thought of 2.3. Have you tested on another machine? I assume 2.1 was good for you? Can't wait to see what others are experiencing.

Safari is a Big Fat Memory Hog

60 tabs may be a lot to have open at once, but Safari (4.0.2) is using 1.8 GB of RAM and 2.3 GB of virtual memory! This seems pretty unreasonable just for keeping some web pages open. I don't think that any of them are using Flash or any other memory intensive technology. Having to periodically quit and restart Safari is not a great solution, just time consuming and annoying. Does anyone have an explanation or a cure? Thanks.

60 Tabs is a lot to have open at once, and because you do, it requires more RAM and virtual memory to keep those items in the cache, as well as using up disk space for Top Sites.
If I were you, I'd stop opening so many tabs at once (half that should be sufficient), as well as start clearing out your caches and disable Top Sites if you don't use it or don't want to use it. You can start with this:
If you don't want to use the Top Sites feature, open Terminal and copy/paste this command:
defaults write com.apple.Safari RSSBookmarksInBarAreSubscribed -bool false
Then press Enter or Return and quit Terminal. Then go to ~/Library/Safari and delete the TopSites.plist file and the WebpageIcons.db file.
Go to ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari and delete the contents of that folder, then use the Get Info panel to Lock the folder.
Go to ~/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari and delete the contents of that folder, then use the Get Info panel to Lock that folder.
Go to ~/Library/Safari and delete these files:
Downloads.plist
History.plist
LastSession.plist
And if you have a folder named LocalStorage, delete it's contents and then use the Get Info panel to Lock that folder.
Use Disk Utility to Repair Disk Permissions; then restart Safari and test it out.
Post back with results.

Mavericks Safari Memory Hog

Recently, I noticed my free RAM was very low when running Safari. Lpooking at the activity monitor having one page open is displaying "Safari Web Content" as usin 247 MB in addition to Safari using 36 MB. The amutn of memory goes up with additional pages are open.
I have stopped using Safari until I get this figured out. Any ideas?

Have a look here for more information about Safari's memory challenges - referred to as "world leaks".
iMac G5 Rev C 20" 2.5gb RAM 250 gb HD/iBook G4 1.33 ghz 1.5gb RAM 40 gb HD Mac OS X (10.4.7) LaCie 160gb d2 HD Canon i960 printer

Safari 4.1.3 Running Deathly Slow and Being a Memory Hog

Hi Everyone! I am on a Powerbook G4 with 2 GB ram. Running OS X 10.4.11 and Safari 4.1.3 When I first launch it take a long time to open first site I go to regardless of what site that it and then runs extremely slow, often unresponsive and also uses a ton of ram. What can I do to speed things up and get better performance? Thanks.

If Safari is getting very slow:
(Presumably you regularly empty your Safari cache by deleting the following file:
Home/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/cache.db
and clear your History)
Adding Open DNS codes to your Network Preferences, should give good results in terms of speed-up as well as added security, (including anti-phishing and redirects) (Full information about Open DNS is here: http://www.opendns.com/home-solutions ) and further independent information can be read here:
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-57338784-263/free-dnscrypt-tool-enhances-ma c-web-security/?tag=mncol;txt
and here:
http://www.macworld.com/article/1146064/troubleshootdns.html?t=234
Open System Preferences/Network. Double click on your connection type, or select it in the drop-down menu, and in the box marked 'DNS Servers' add the following two numbers:
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220
(You can also enter them if you click on Advanced and then DNS)
Sometimes reversing the order of the DNS numbers can be beneficial in cases where there is a long delay before web pages start to load, and then suddenly load at normal speed:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2296
If you use a Router, make sure it has the latest firmware installed.
One reason for a slowness in page loading may be the 'DNS Pre-fetching' feature of Safari 5.x as is described here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3408?viewlocale=en_US
You can cancel DNS pre-fetching by going to Terminal and typing:
defaults write com.apple.safari WebKitDNSPrefetchingEnabled -boolean false
You have to restart Safari for it to take effect.
If Safari seems to hang for ages:
If you have a lot of tabs open and/or a lot of pages running Flash, Safari can sometimes 'hang', requiring a restart of Safari. This can often be inconvenient, and as it is rarely Safari itself that is hanging but merely one of its plug-ins, usually Flash, there is a way using Terminal to restart the plug-ins (without restarting Safari and losing your tabs) by quitting the WebPluginHost process:
Open the Terminal from the Utilities folder in /Applications and type
killall -9 WebKitPluginHost
Note that this command kills all Safari plug-ins, not just Flash. All plug-ins should start back up when you reload the page.
Then go back to Safari and refresh any pages that were using the Flash plug-in. This also fixes the Beachball of Death. Try this whenever Safari gets slow or freezes. The later versions of Flash 10.1 onwards appear to have improved the situation somewhat, but haven't completed eliminated it.
For this and other reasons Apple switched their websites to HTML5 in January 2011:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/01/26/apple_revamps_its_public_website_u sing_html5.html

Safari 5 - A Big Memory Hog

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