Safari CPU usage

[imrazor]

This isn't a complaint, but rather me scratching my head at Chrome and Firefox.

I noticed that while watching videos Youtube (which I spend way too much time doing), the fans on my 2012 era Macbook Pro would ramp up like a jet engine. Thinking about it for a moment, I decided to check the CPU usage with Activity Monitor.

Between Firefox proper, it's web player container, and WindowServer had between them 45% - 60% CPU usage. Since Google owns Youtube, I decided that Google would probably have optimized Chrome on OS X for Youtube. Nope. If anything Chrome used a little more horsepower than Firefox.

So finally I decided to try Apple's red-headed stepchild, Safari (4% desktop browser market share.) And it had a 15% cpu usage. If you exclude WindowServer, the usage was actually 5%. My fans were much happier.

The only problem is the lack of plugins. There are two Firefox plugins I use a lot (uBlock Origin and HTTPS Everywhere), and I'm not sure if they exist on Safari. Does Safari even have a plugin "store"?

Why is Safari so much more efficient? I understand that it's the "native" browser of OS X, but the 3x - 4x extra usage of other browsers seems, well, insane.

 

[Gravydog316]

Safari has 'Extensions' rather than plugins (same thing tho);
===
Safari & Google Chrome use WebKit & FF uses Gecko engine, which uses more ram;
(I mainly use FF for AdBlocker lol)
FF is supposed to be faster, but uses more CPU...
Mostly, the GPU is what causes the fans to come on;
if you watch videos in browsers, try lowering the display res. (use 720p instead of 1080p, or whatever)
or, if you are watching dvd's or saved videos, try turning off your wifi;

plus, there are other things like Spotlight search that uses lots of power while updating

lots of things...
plus your ram & gpu & cpu, settings, etc. etc...

basically cause Safari is homemade, it's supposed to faster, but it isn't always...
I use Firefox, cause i'm so used to it, & just like it better.

 

[Ritsuka]

Because Youtube on Chrome and Firefox will send you video in vp9 format, that is a bit better than h.264. But your computer doesn't have a vp9 hardware decoder, so it will use the cpu.

 

[vault]

Youtube pushes VP8 coded videos to browsers that support it (Chrome and Firefox). macOS does not support hardware decoders for VP8, even if your hardware supports it (Broadwell+ CPUs), so it uses your raw CPU to do the work.

On the other hand Safari does not support VP8 at all so you get h264 videos, the only codec Apple seems to care about.

TLDR:
It's a result of two huge corporations being very childish.

 

[BrianBaughn]

The Maxthon 5 Cloud Browser isn't particularly good for general browsing but you might give it a try for specifically watching longer streaming videos.

 

[imrazor]

Safari has 'Extensions' rather than plugins (same thing tho);
===
Safari & Google Chrome use WebKit & FF uses Gecko engine, which uses more ram;
(I mainly use FF for AdBlocker lol)
FF is supposed to be faster, but uses more CPU...
Mostly, the GPU is what causes the fans to come on;
if you watch videos in browsers, try lowering the display res. (use 720p instead of 1080p, or whatever)
or, if you are watching dvd's or saved videos, try turning off your wifi;

plus, there are other things like Spotlight search that uses lots of power while updating

lots of things...
plus your ram & gpu & cpu, settings, etc. etc...

basically cause Safari is homemade, it's supposed to faster, but it isn't always...
I use Firefox, cause i'm so used to it, & just like it better.

I've used Firefox forever, and generally prefer it. But the CPU usage situation is making reconsider my position. Even if Safari is using a slightly inferior codec, I'd rather use it to keep my temps down and my ears happy. Since I have Youtube Red (or Premium or whatever they're calling it now), I don't have to worry about ads on Youtube anyway. And I was playing the videos at 720p.

I guess the simple solution is to use Safari for Youtube, and Firefox for everything else...

 

[Gravydog316]

I've used Firefox forever, and generally prefer it. But the CPU usage situation is making reconsider my position. Even if Safari is using a slightly inferior codec, I'd rather use it to keep my temps down and my ears happy. Since I have Youtube Red (or Premium or whatever they're calling it now), I don't have to worry about ads on Youtube anyway. And I was playing the videos at 720p.

I guess the simple solution is to use Safari for Youtube, and Firefox for everything else...

Yeah, I have used Firefox forever mostly,
& Firefox extensions use CPU/memory, 'cause I use adblocker lol