Speed Up Safari

bobw

bobw

The Late: SuperMacMod
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/4924

This little hack is courtesy of macOSXhints.com and boy oh boy does it work great! The hack comes out of an interesting piece written by the Safari developer David Hyatt on the adding of timers to browsers. Apparently, in order to render obsolete flashing pages that can occurs when a webpage loads, (due to the client getting data from any number of sources; the stylesheet, various data sources, etc) web browsers are programmed with a little delay. The delay is, appropriately, conservative. But by adjusting a variable in the Safari preference file you can speed Safari’s delay time up.

To try this (after backing-up, etc.) go to the terminal after Safari has quit and type:

defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitInitialTimedLayoutDelay 0.25

The default time in the Safari preference time is 1.0. Now go ahead and launch Safari. Notice a difference? I sure did! As someone commented on macoxhints.com it was like getting a new machine. I wouldn't go that far, that is certainly feels like Safari had a double-shot espresso.
 
I don't know how much of a difference it makes, but pages do load a little faster for me.
 
Reportedly, next version of Safari will incorporate this, but it does seem like a nice fix. I did a restart and the changes seem to have remained, which is also good.
 
Of course they stay, it's a write-in to the prefs file. The only way to get rid of it would be to change that back somehow (editing, deleting the file...) :)
 
Unless you had Safari open when you made the changes. Then it could be overwritten and revert back to 1.0 the next time you open Safari.
Besides I wanted to see if the speed bump increased during a reset, and I had to reinstall PhotoShop CS anyway so I did a restart after running Cocktail and killed a couple of birds with one restart.
 
So, what now after there is 10.3.4 update? I read there are safari updates as well. So, you guys will to do it all over again? Is that "fix" now even implemented?
 
So open the com.apple.Safari.plist file in TextEdit and check it. I find using TextEdit to edit plist files in TextEdit is much easier than typing the command in the Terminal.
 
I found out that the 10.3.4 update didn't add this fix. At least those two lines were not added after that update. Just in case someone was interested to this ;)
 
sounds a great idea... but for a beginner in this programing thing, is it possible to fix it?
I don't understand where should I start... "typing the command in the Terminal"

how do I get in there..?
where are the terminals..?
Should I see the old command...Safari preference time is 1.0?
Thanks guys!!!
 
Open the Terminal Application. It's in your Utilities folder.

Then just copy/paste the following and hit Return;

defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitInitialTimedLayoutDelay 0.25

If you want to go back, just copy/paste the same line, but change the 0.25 to 1.0.
 
I did what you suggested me, but "should I save the changes..?"
...'cause after restarting the PowerBook, and back to the terminal folder to check, the changes where no there any longer... is that correct?
Thanks again,

Fer

bobw said:
Open the Terminal Application. It's in your Utilities folder.

Then just copy/paste the following and hit Return;

defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitInitialTimedLayoutDelay 0.25

If you want to go back, just copy/paste the same line, but change the 0.25 to 1.0.
Click to expand...
 
Should stick

Open the com.apple.Safari.plist here;

user>library>preferences

It will open with Property List Editor. Scroll down to
WebkitInitialTimedLayoutDelay

and see what it says. Should be 0.25.
 
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