Safari and Firefox Problems

S

Scottfab

Helpless Mac Newbie
Safari problem: It slows down alot on alot of sites, especially forums. And it crashes on some sites. The slowdowns may be due to Saft or Pithhelmet, or duplicate fonts. It might also be Java, but I doubt it.

Firefox Problems: Its really slow to load, and scrolling is terrible. Too slow on the mouse, too fast on the trackpad.

Anybody have the solution to either problem?
 
Firefox works great with my mouse. Do you have all software/drivers installed for it? Have you done the basic permissions/disk repair yet?
 
yep, i already repaired.

firefox doesnt respond well to the trackpad. i managed to somewhat fix the mouse scrolling though.

oddly enough, streaming realplayer only works on safari, not firefox.
 
do you switch between trackpad and mouse a lot?

Try setting Firefox's app open preferences for RealPlayer. Maybe it's just not set up correctly?
 
Natobasso said:
Try setting Firefox's app open preferences for RealPlayer. Maybe it's just not set up correctly?
Click to expand...
What would that do? RealPlayer, or any other extension for Firefox, has nothing to do with mouse speed.
 
lol, you two dont have to fight on my behalf. I'd just like to know how to solve my ultrafast trackpad scrolling and realplayer issues on firefox, and my slowdown and crashing issues (I know I'm not the only one with them) on Safari.

Bah, I dont know which one to chose. Both safari and firefox have their pros and cons. If Safari had firefox's adblock and didnt crash though, I think it'd be the clear winner.
 
First thing's first: uninstall Saft. The more add-ons you have, the more chances for instability.

I wouldn't dare uninstall PithHelmet, though, because IMO Safari is simply unusable without it. However, you should make sure you're using the current version (there are two "current" versions out right now; one for OS 10.3.9 and one for 10.3.8). Set the "Block mode" from "Faster" to "Safer", and try disabling "Fast collapsing" (under the Advanced tab of your site rules).

Aside from that, I really don't know. What sites does it tend to crash with? I personally have never had major stability problems with Safari, with the exception of a few nasty Java applets.

As for speed...that's complicated. Again, which sites are giving you problems? PithHelmet has been known to really, REALLY slow things down if it's not properly configured, but in my experience the latest version doesn't cause major problems.

Here's one tip for increasing Safari's speed (or at least it's perceived speed): open Terminal and type "defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitInitialTimedLayoutDelay 0.25". That'll change the standard delay before displaying the page from the default 1 second to 0.25 seconds. This way Safari will display data from incomplete pages sooner (like Firefox does). You might even want to set it to 0.1. Different people recommend different values, and naturally YMMV.

Safari's web site icons cache can slow things down, too. Download SafariSpeed to clear Safari's icon cache and keep it from making a new one. SafariSpeed also provides a simple GUI to the trick I described above, although it uses 0.000001 (or something like that) as its value, which I think is way too aggressive.

As for your problems with Firefox, beats me. One of the main reasons I don't use Firefox is because of its terrible scrolling, too. Keyboard-controlled scrolling is way too slow, and mouse wheel-controlled scrolling is too fast and completely non-standard. I use USB Overdrive to fine-tune my mouse wheel behavior, but Firefox doesn't play by the rules like everything else does. Grr. The other reason I prefer Safari is Firefox's all-around hacky interface. And I personally like PithHelmet much better than Adblock.
 
Pithhelmet is terrible compared to Adblock, and I like having Saft's "type as you find" and shortcuts. It makes it very firefox-like. I loved using Firefox on PC, so Firefox Mac is a bit of a dissapointment.

Sure, I could have AcidSearch, but I've heard its even worse for Safari.

But if I were to get rid of Saft, how would I go about doing so?

Safari's slowness may be related to how long its been open for. The longer its open, the slower it becomes.
 
Ok, update: Safari, when first opened, is very fast. However, if I leave it on overnight, it slows down. The longer it goes without closing, the slower it becomes. Why is that? It never happens with IE or Firefox. I dont have the experience of using Safari before 10.3.9, so I cant tell you if this is a new problem, a safari problem, or just me. Anybody know?
 
The Saft installer has an uninstall option. Alternatively, you can just drag the Saft plugin out of "/Library/InputManagers/"

I've not yet updated to 10.3.9, but I often leave Safari loaded for several days at a time with no problems. 10.3.9 has introduced quite a few widespread problems with Safari, though, from broken plugins (PithHelmet, etc.) to crashing Java applets, so I wouldn't be surprised if this is just another for the list.

Even if you're not willing to use Safari without PithHelmet and/or Saft, I recommend uninstalling them at least temporarily to determine if they're causing your problems. (You can uninstall PithHelmet by removing it from "/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins/") If you can pin it down to one or the other, then the author may be able to fix it.
 
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