Safari really maxing out CPU on certain sites

[BeatCrazy]

Maybe this is normal? Using Safari 12.1 on macOS 10.14.4.

I've been finding on certain sites like CNN.com, Safari really bogs down and I get a beachball. I installed the Intel Power Gadget on both my 2017 MacBook (base M3 + 16GB RAM) and 2018 MacBook Pro TB (base i5 + 16GB RAM).

Seems like hitting certain sites will push the power draw all the way to max (10w on MB, ~28W on MBP) and knock the CPU core frequency to ~90%. Core utilization will hit 50-80%.

Is this a result of a poorly designed site with lots of CDN content being pulled in? I've already cleared out cookies/cache, doesn't make a difference. I can certainly live with it, I just imagine the experience for users with older laptops/PCs has to be even worse than mine.

 

[Honza1]

I just tried CNN.com on my 2017 MBP TB.
1. While Safari does not run 90% cpu load, it is quite a lot - without any content blocker cnn.com uses 13-15% of my cpu. That seems like one cpu core on my machine more or less full blast (4 cores/8 threads, single thread is 15% cpu load). And yes, my fans are clearly speeding up. Ouch...
2. Switch on Ghostery Lite (default protection on) and cpu load of Safari (with 12 tabs) is around 1%. Fans are quiet. That is how it should be.

Conclusion: install content blocker, use it. Stop this insanity...

Ghostery Lite is free. There may be better ones, do not know.

 

[BeatCrazy]

I just tried CNN.com on my 2017 MBP TB.
1. While Safari does not run 90% cpu load, it is quite a lot - without any content blocker cnn.com uses 13-15% of my cpu. That seems like one cpu core on my machine more or less full blast (4 cores/8 threads, single thread is 15% cpu load). And yes, my fans are clearly speeding up. Ouch...
2. Switch on Ghostery Lite (default protection on) and cpu load of Safari (with 12 tabs) is around 1%. Fans are quiet. That is how it should be.

Conclusion: install content blocker, use it. Stop this insanity...

Ghostery Lite is free. There may be better ones, do not know.

Thanks. Any negatives to using Ghostery Lite? Things not load that should?

 

[Honza1]

You can always pause it if you suspect problem and whitelist sites which have issues. I have not had need for it, yet, except testing for you and similar. Pages load much faster, use less data and look cleaner.