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.

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Why Does Safari Use Excessive Memory with Gmail?

I am running Safari 7.0.1 along with Maverics (10.9.1) on a 2011 MacBook Air with 4 GB of memory. Just recently I have begun to notice excessive memory usage when using Gmail. I have iStat Menus as well as something called MemoryKeeper so I can monitor memory use in real time.
The table below shows numbers taken from Activity Monitor with each of the sites running in a single tab. The Safari Web Content is through the roof with Gmail compared to My Yahoo or indeed with any other single site. In Gmail it starts out above 500 MB and slowly comes down to the lower end indicated if I do nothing. If I open tabs with both My Yahoo and Gmail, I sink below 100 MB and if I have three tabs open I'm heading to zero. As far as I can tell, the excessive memory useage only occurs with Gmail.
Process
Yahoo
Gmail
Safari
156 MB
167 MB
Safari Web Content
96 MB
531-338 MB
Kernel Task
464 MB
464 MB
Free
662 MB
210 MB
Typically I will close Safari and start it again if I get much below 100 MB. I usually have to close Safari at the end of the day to refresh it for the next day. This has only become a problem within the last month or so, and I am at a loss to explain it. I thought it might be Mavericks related (though I have been running Mavericks since its release), but then the Safari I have on my 5 year old Mac Mini running Snow Leopard gives me similar results.
When I run Google Chrome I don't have any of these problems. Indeed, though it is not my preference, I am having to use it more and more for day to day activities or I have to stick with one tab if I am going back and forth between Gmail and other sites. I have not seen this problem reported elsewhere, so I have to believe there is something going on in my system. I have cleared the cache one time on both systems, but that doesn't seem to have made any difference. I would appreciate any comments or suggestions.
-Bill

I would not have even tried this app had I not heard about it on the Mac Rountable podcast (episode #222), where it received favorable comments from otherwise knowledgeable people. It also has a 4.5 star rating on the Mac App Store with 706 5-Star ratings out of 1,049. If you add up the 5-Star and 4-Star ratings you get close to 1,000 favorable rates right there. I have to wonder if people really know what's going on. Since the most obvious detrimental effects for me were centered around using Safari with Gmail on Mavericks, others must not be using that lethal combination. As I mentioned, using Google Chrome does not seem to have any obvious deliterious effects.
Well, there's going to be one more 1-Star rating reflecting my experience.
-Bill

What is bzip2 and why is it such a system hog?

I understand it to be a compression utility but what is it compressing?
I saw the temp on my CPU going up and up and up, checked the Activity Monitor and showed
bzip2 as the hog
It shot my CPU temp up to 60C... It happened right around midnight so I suspect it might be compressing log files. Seems a little intense though... Nothing in the console files though that suggest it was even running....
Thanks for any insights...
Message was edited by: A. Timleck

bzip2 is a data compression tool, like PKZIP, WinZip, gzip, etc. Specifically, it reads in a bunch of data, looks for repetitious patterns of bits, and builds a table of abbreviations for those patterns of bits. By storing the table, and the bits of the file replaced by abbreviations, it effectively makes the data smaller, while containing the same information (though, to get at it, you have to use the table to convert the abbreviations back into the bits they represent). This is called "lossless data compression".
What is it doing on your Mac? Well, any program could be using it for something, but on a basic installation of Leopard with no other software, it's used by a service that performs what's called "log rotation". Your machine keeps informational messages about various events that happen on your computer, "logs". Depending what's going on, these can get long, and you generally don't want them filling up your hard disk, but they are still useful from time to time to see what's going on. So, the system moves the log file and compresses it (using gzip or bzip2). That way you still have a few days of copies of the logs (it generally throws out a compressed log after a week), but they don't take up nearly as much space. You can read the logs with the Console.app utility.
I wouldn't worry so much about bzip2 - It should finish quickly, unless the file it's compressing is absolutely huge. If the file (presumably a log file) is very big, it means that something's going on that's causing the logs to fill up with messages. That's very probably something you want to look at, so use Console.app to see if there's a bunch of messages in any of the log files that indicate that something's awry (they can be fairly cryptic).
The Console.app log won't specifically mention anything about bzip2 running if the running of bzip2 is a normal activity (which it is).
One thing you might also want to do, is use the hierarchy view in Activity Monitor.app to see what started it (the parent). I haven't looked into the scheme the Mac uses for log rotation, but there'd be a script for it under CoreServices or something (on Linux, it'd be logrotate). If it is, instead, some application or service that you installed, you can check with the source of that service to see if you can't do something to alter the behavior.

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

Why are websites such as Amazon, Lowes displaying different on a MacBook Pro OS X Yosemite and Safari or Chrome as browsers?

Why are websites such as Amazon, Lowes displaying different on a MacBook Pro OS X Yosemite and Safari or Chrome as browsers?

Even the http://www.apple.com/support/ website. See this screen shot from the bottom top and bottom of http://www.apple.com/support/

Tell me please why? Safari it so much memory!

Hello.
Tell me please why? Safari it so much memory!
I have opened only one page.
And problem with google search. Some time when I write text Safari is lags and crashes!
I had cleaned cookie and history!
Thank you!
OS X 10.8.4
Safari 6.0.5
Best regards!

From the Safari menu bar, select
Safari ▹ Preferences ▹ Extensions
Turn all extensions OFF and test. If the problem is resolved, turn extensions back ON and then disable them one or a few at a time until you find the culprit.
If you wish, you may be able to salvage the malfunctioning extension by uninstalling and reinstalling it. That will revert its settings to the defaults.

Eclipse - Why is it such a popular choice over NetBeans?

I've been a Java developer for about 5 years, and for the first 2.5 years the only IDE I used was NetBeans. Since then, in practically every other Java job I've had, the developers all seem to prefer Eclipse over NetBeans, and I can't understand why. Moving from NetBeans to Eclipse was painful for me for the following reasons (among others).
- In Eclipse, you can't point and scroll, you have to click to set focus first. NetBeans is sensitive to your mouse movement, so you can scroll through your package list, then your code editor window, without unnecessary clicking to set the focus to what you're pointing at. It may seem like a small issue until you get used to having it and then go without it. Then it seems like a ridiculous oversight on the part of Eclipse.
- In Eclipse, if you do a search for usages of the method myObject.toString() (highlight toString(), right-click, References -> Project), it finds all usages of Object.toString() instead of myObject.toString(). So 95% of your search results are totally worthless.
- Eclipse has a bad habit of getting out of sync with the file system, causing searches to fail until you refresh the workspace. What's that about?
- Eclipse Search has a bad habit of looking into binary files for results. I'm developing Java code, so I need to search Java code, not .class files!
- Eclipse annoyingly replaces your source tabs, as opposed to opening new ones, when you open a new source file by double-clicking a search result. If you can navigate the trainwreck layout that is Eclipse Preferences, you might find where you can turn this behavior off.
- F3 and Shift + F3 represent find next and find previous, practically everywhere else in the world except Eclipse. This is also configurable in Eclipse Preferences, but should be defaulted to this out of the box.
Of course NetBeans has a few of its own annoyances, I'm not saying it's perfect or anything. But the only way I've seen Eclipse being superior to NetBeans has to do with the SVN plugin, and Eclipse can't even take credit for that. So I just don't understand why so many people seem to be on the Eclipse bandwagon when NetBeans is at least equivalent if not superior in every way as far as I can tell.

BinaryDigit wrote:
Thank you. I also noticed that NetBeans is a resource hog compared to Eclipse, so that's one major benefit. Also, Eclipse has a way to do things like automatically define serialVersionUID in several files at once using the Quick Fix feature, but NetBeans doesn't seem to have any such thing. Those are the things I'm asking about - significant differences that would compel someone to prefer Eclipse over NB.Those are minor differences. How on earth is automatically defining the serialVersionUID a significant difference?
Besides, once you've installed enough plugins, Eclipse is quite the memory hog too.
kevinaworkman wrote:
This isn't really the place to post complaints about a particular IDE.Good, because that's not what I'm doing at all. The thread title has a clue if you care to read it.Regardless of the thread title, this will become a useless "which tool is better" discussion. Just like if we were to compare Windows and Linux or say Ruby and Java.
kevinaworkman wrote:
Then perhaps you should ask them instead of us?I'm asking people here for reasons, if any, why they prefer Eclipse over NetBeans.All my Java programming co-workers are using Eclipse as far as I know, it's very much a de facto standard (although I assume there are NetBeans houses too, I've just never worked in one). I came to Eclipse from Visual Age 4 Java and NetBeans has never impressed me. Now IntelliJ IDEA, that's another story.
I'd like to learn more about what the big attraction to Eclipse is. I figure I must be missing something.Well, your story started out as "I've been using NetBeans and Eclipse is different".
If you don't prefer Eclipse over NetBeans, and would rather pseudo-moderate the forums by trying to dictate what can and cannot be posted here, then kindly go away because I don't need your feedback in that regard.Well nowadays we have the real moderators to keep things calm, so no need to waste your breath by telling us to go away.
Especially when I've been here 3 years longer than you.Now now, the "registered" date has less meaning than your senseless drivel. It's the post count that determines your rank in here.
Kayaman wrote:
Then take your whining elsewhere you whippersnapper.
Nobody cares that you're not used to using Eclipse.Oh look, another abrasive prick who'd rather make assumptions than respond to the actual question.Don't get your knickers in a twist.

TS1559 Why does Safari kick me out randomly?

Why does Safari kick me out randomly?

That happens sometimes.
Periodically double click the home button and close all the apps in the recently used dock. Then power off and then back on the iPod. This frees up memory. The the 3G and 4G only has 256 MB of memory. The 5G 512 MB, This does not work for 1G and 2G
Next try
- Reset the iOS device. Nothing will be lost
Reset iOS device: Hold down the On/Off button and the Home button at the same time for at
least ten seconds, until the Apple logo appears.
- Go to Settings>Saari and Clear Cookies, Data and History
To delete all music go to Settings>General>Usage>Storage>Music>Tap edit in upper right and then tap the minus sign by All Music
- Reset all settings
Go to Settings > General > Reset and tap Reset All Settings.
All your preferences and settings are reset. Information (such as contacts and calendars) and media (such as songs and videos) aren’t affected.
- Restore from backup. See:
iOS: Back up and restore your iOS device with iCloud or iTunes
- Restore to factory settings/new iOS device.

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

Why does Safari crash in the middle of a movie or show from the internet?

Why does Safari crashes in the middle of a movie or show from the internet?

Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad and start typing the name.
Step 1
For this step, the title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select
          SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages
from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select
          View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar at the top of the screen.
In the top right corner of the Console window, there's a search box labeled Filter. Initially the words "String Matching" are shown in that box. Enter the name of the crashed application or process. For example, if Safari crashed, you would enter "Safari" (without the quotes.)
Each message in the log begins with the date and time when it was entered. Select the messages from the time of the last crash, if any. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.
☞ The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of which is irrelevant to solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.
Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.
☞ Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.
Step 2
In the Console window, select
          DIAGNOSTIC AND USAGE INFORMATION ▹ User Diagnostic Reports
(not Diagnostic and Usage Messages) from the log list on the left. There is a disclosure triangle to the left of the list item. If the triangle is pointing to the right, click it so that it points down. You'll see a list of crash reports. The name of each report starts with the name of the process, and ends with ".crash". Select the most recent report related to the process in question. The contents of the report will appear on the right. Use copy and paste to post the entire contents—the text, not a screenshot.
I know the report is long, maybe several hundred lines. Please post all of it anyway.
If you don't see any reports listed, but you know there was a crash, you may have chosen Diagnostic and Usage Messages from the log list. Choose DIAGNOSTIC AND USAGE INFORMATION instead.
In the interest of privacy, I suggest that, before posting, you edit out the “Anonymous UUID,” a long string of letters, numbers, and dashes in the header of the report, if it’s present (it may not be.)
Please don’t post other kinds of diagnostic report—they're very long and rarely helpful.

Why does Safari close each night, overnight?

Why does Safari close each night, overnight? I leave my iMac computer on overnight and Safari always stayed open until I closed it. This closing nightly is new within the past two months. I have Safari version 7.1 and OSX 10.9.5. Is this a setting I can adjust? I am not interested in updating to Yosemite at this time for a solution.

You may have installed the "Genieo" or "InstallMac" ad-injection malware. Follow the instructions on this Apple Support page to remove it.
Back up all data before making any changes.
Besides the files listed in the linked support article, you may also need to remove this file in the same way:
~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.genieo.completer.ltvbit.plist
If there are other items with a name that includes "Genieo" or "genieo" alongside any of those you find, remove them as well.
One of the steps in the article is to remove malicious Safari extensions. Do the equivalent in the Chrome and Firefox browsers, if you use either of those.
After removing the malware, remember to reset your home page in all the web browsers affected, if it was changed.
If you don't find any of the files or extensions listed, or if removing them doesn't stop the ad injection, then you may have one of the other kinds of adware covered by the support article. Follow the rest of the instructions in the article.
Make sure you don't repeat the mistake that led you to install the malware. Chances are you got it from an Internet cesspit such as "Softonic" or "CNET Download." Never visit either of those sites again. You might also have downloaded it from an ad in a page on some other site. The ad would probably have included a large green button labeled "Download" or "Download Now" in white letters. The button is designed to confuse people who intend to download something else on the same page. If you ever download a file that isn't obviously what you expected, delete it immediately.
In the Security & Privacy pane of System Preferences, select the General tab. The radio button marked Anywhere should not be selected. If it is, click the lock icon to unlock the settings, then select one of the other buttons. After that, don't ignore a warning that you are about to run or install an application from an unknown developer.
Still in System Preferences, open the App Store or Software Update pane and check the box marked
Install system data files and security updates (OS X 10.10 or later)
or
Download updates automatically (OS X 10.9 or earlier)
if it's not already checked.

Why does safari freeze on Facebook whenever I scroll to a video? This only happens in Facebook and only when I scroll to a video.

Why does safari freeze on Facebook whenever I scroll to a video? This only happens in Facebook and only when I scroll to a video.

Hello,
Most videos on the internet are played using the Adobe Flash plugin.
Recent crashes of certain multimedia contents (this includes Youtube videos, certain flash games and other applications) in conjunction with Firefox are most probably caused by a recent Flash update and/or a malfunctioning browser plugin such as Real Player.
In order to remedy the problem, please perform the steps mentioned in these Knowledge Base articles:
* [[Flash Plugin - Keep it up to date and troubleshoot problems]]
* [[Flash 11.3 crashes]]
* [[Flash 11.3 doesn't load video in Firefox]]
Other, more technical information about these issues can be found under these Links:
* http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1018071?tstart=0
* http://blogs.adobe.com/asset/2012/06/inside-flash-player-protected-mode-for-firefox.html
I hope this helps. Let me know if not.

Why my safari browser is not opening pdf files?I'm currently using the lat 2013 macbook pro with os mavericks and all my software is uptodate?

Why my safari browser is not opening pdf files?I'm currently using the lat 2013 macbook pro with os mavericks and all my software is uptodate?

Back up all data.
If Adobe Reader or Acrobat is installed, there should be a setting in its preferences such as Display PDF in Browser. I don't use those applications myself, so I can't be more precise. Deselect that setting, if it's selected. Otherwise do as follows.
Triple-click anywhere in the line of text below on this page to select it, the copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C:
/Library/Internet Plug-ins
In the Finder, select
Go ▹ Go to Folder
from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-G. Paste into the text box that opens (command-V), then press return.
From the folder that opens, move to the Trash any items that have "Adobe" or “PDF” in the name. You may be prompted for your login password. Then quit and relaunch Safari, and test.
The "Silverlight" web plugin distributed by Microsoft can also interfere with PDF display in Safari, so you may need to remove it as well, if it's present. The same goes for a plugin called "iGetter," and perhaps others — I don't have a complete list.
If you still have the issue, repeat with this line:
~/Library/Internet Plug-ins
If you don’t like the results of this procedure, restore the items from the backup you made before you started. Relaunch Safari again.

Why does Safari spontaneously close, particularly when I'm not at my computer?

Ever morning when I sit at my computer, I find that Safari is no longer open, even though I left it--along with Mail, Calendar, and a few other programs--open when I walked away from my laptop (MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz Intel Core i5 running OS X 10.8.4). Anyone have any idea of how to fix this?

"Automatic app termination manages the life cycle of apps behind the scenes, terminating apps that are not being used and allowing the reclamation of resources such as memory. With this feature, users no longer need to explicitly quit apps (although they still can, if they want to). Instead, the operating system is responsible for managing app processes with the goal of ensuring optimal system performance."
Mac Technology Overview: Cocoa Application Layer

Inkjet 4 memory hog

Since installing Mountain Lion, my IMAC has been running slow at times due to low memory (like 20 Mb free...) issues. I have 4 Gb of RAM installed. Activity Monitor indictes that my HP 309A printer is hogging up to 2 Gb of memory! My software is all up-to-date. When I quit the Inkjet 4 process (in Activity Monitor) everything goes back to normal. The "Memory Cleaner" application also frees up memory. Any help that could be provided would be appreciated!

Ps - apps such as "Memory Cleaner" are totally unnecessary. Any memory held in an inactive (blue) state has been previously used by an application, but is now available for use for any application that needs it. If the original application is re-launched, it will operate more quickly for having its data already in RAM.
It's a misconception that you need to have a huge swathe of free (green) RAM for your system to operate well. Free RAM is not being used at all and is wasteful. Provided your total free + inactive RAM is sufficient for any programs you wish to run, the system should be fine.
Also, don't pay attention to the "VRAM" amount in a running process - that does not reflect the true amount of RAM used from your total.
Matt

Why is Safari such a memory hog?

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