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Why is Safari so awful?

N

nitromac

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 29, 2012
282
13
US
I try and I try to like it, but every time, it just ***** on me in the middle of something. I was trying to watch the keynote on apple.com yesterday (after it was finished, so no live stream). It wouldn't load. I was forced to watch it in Google Chrome, for which apple purposely uploaded a low-res, low framerate version.

Youtube didn't work yesterday under the HTML5 trial. Had to decline and load through flash.

And half the time I'm typing something, it will randomly white out whatever I had typed, and then after deleting 90% of the text, it shows back up, but only with the 10% remaining text that I hadn't erased.

And there are black blocks that show up on youtube, this forum, engadget, basically every website I visit. I have to select the entire page to get rid of them.

Seriously, apple.
 
P

PalacePlayers

macrumors regular
Oct 5, 2011
106
3
Try it on the new retina MacBook Pro. Facebook is so slow and laggy it's actually useless. Like in useless. Hoping for an update very soon. Safari 6.0 on retina MacBook Pro is the worst product I've used by Apple bar none.
 
N

Namtaro

macrumors regular
Dec 4, 2011
135
0
It's definitely not Safari, but it's something else or how you configured it that's the problem.

Everything that you have described has never happened to me on Safari. I actually switched from Chrome to Safari after version 6.0.


Not sure of the Retina version though since I have the 2011 15inch Macbook Pro.
 
J

jk73

macrumors 65816
Jul 19, 2012
1,323
1,287
Namtaro said:
It's definitely not Safari, but it's something else or how you configured it that's the problem.

[...]

Not sure of the Retina version though since I have the 2011 15inch Macbook Pro.
Click to expand...

Safari on rMBP is atrocious. It's the worst experience I've had with an Apple product in years and years.
 
T

theineffablebob

macrumors regular
Jul 29, 2012
111
10
The only reason I use Safari on my rMBP is because it's still the smoothest browser. Firefox and Chrome aren't as smooth in scrolling which annoys me, so I just try and live with Safari's crashing and rendering problems.
 
Sital

Sital

macrumors 68020
May 31, 2012
2,141
934
New England
Safari is the only one of the "three big" browsers that gives me problems. It does have the best gestures and animations, but those don't make up for the frustrations. I switched to Firefox and have been happy with it. When Safari 7 comes out I'll give it another try, but won't be holding my breath.
 
P

PalacePlayers

macrumors regular
Oct 5, 2011
106
3
theineffablebob said:
The only reason I use Safari on my rMBP is because it's still the smoothest browser. Firefox and Chrome aren't as smooth in scrolling which annoys me, so I just try and live with Safari's crashing and rendering problems.
Click to expand...

Are you serious? To me it's the scrolling that makes it useless. When I am scrolling down my facebook feed it lags so much it's almost not useable.

If you aren't having the same experience as me it's interesting. Could this be a hardware problem on my Mac?
 
J

JesalTV

Guest
Aug 24, 2012
182
0
London
Well this is weird.

Been a longtime Firefox user. Every year I give Safari a spin just for a laugh, and hate it after minutes.

But after recent upgrade to Mountain Lion, I really like Safari! It's much better now (for me on my 2011 MBP 15" - with 16gb RAM, though).

Love the full-screen option too, and have had zero problems in the last few weeks.
 
Krazy Bill

Krazy Bill

macrumors 68030
Dec 21, 2011
2,985
3
This is another one of those enigmas I can't understand. While I never doubt the people here that claim these problems I just never experience them. Since OSX 10.5 most things have simply worked for me.

Sure, there have been (and always will be) the blatant quirks and design flaws but I've yet to come across any show stoppers. I had a kernel panic back in '09 though if that makes anyone feel better.

As far as browsers go, Safari has always worked blazingly fast for me. If there are any subtle differences between chrome, FireFox, Opera... I sure can't see them. (Although FireFox has a wealth of awesome plug-ins).

A long time ago I resigned myself to try to use as many native Apple apps as I could which were made for the OS. Made sense then. Makes sense today.
 
MacDawg

MacDawg

Moderator emeritus
Mar 20, 2004
19,823
4,504
"Between the Hedges"
I actually moved from Chrome to Safari because it was much quicker for me and works flawlessly

Chrome is my second choice from time to time when I need 2 browsers open to login to sites

I gave up on the slow and bloated Firefox long ago
 
P

PalacePlayers

macrumors regular
Oct 5, 2011
106
3
Amigaman said:
I stuck with Chrome for a long time. However, Safari 6 on ML has won me over. I haven't had any issues with it so far.
Click to expand...

I see that you have a retina display MacBook Pro, so I was curious on how Safari on your computer performs on these sites:

- facebook, on your news feed especially
- http://www.aftenposten.no
- http://www.nrk.no
- http://www.retinamacapps.com
- http://www.vg.no

Would have been great if you just told me how Safari performs on these sites, just regular fast and slower scrolling etc.
 
Amigaman

Amigaman

macrumors 6502
Sep 29, 2007
281
66
Greenville, MI
Sital

Sital

macrumors 68020
May 31, 2012
2,141
934
New England
MacDawg said:
I actually moved from Chrome to Safari because it was much quicker for me and works flawlessly

Chrome is my second choice from time to time when I need 2 browsers open to login to sites

I gave up on the slow and bloated Firefox long ago
Click to expand...

With the last couple of versions or so, Firefox is no longer slow. I did a side-by-side comparison of Safari 6 and Firefox (version 14, maybe, who can keep track) and Firefox was slightly faster rendering web pages. And memory and CPU use was similar with Safari better by a little bit. As usual, it's really just a matter of personal preference and for me Firefox's quirks < Safari's quirks.
 
E

eternalife

macrumors regular
Jul 21, 2011
159
0
Interesting to hear all the problems. I don't have any issues with Safari (recent releases). It is my browser of choice for everything but flash. I jump over to Chrome for that. I don't even have Flash installed on my machine (maybe that has something to do with it).
 
limonade

limonade

macrumors member
Mar 17, 2008
40
0
Montreal, Canada
nitromac said:
I try and I try to like it, but every time, it just ***** on me in the middle of something. I was trying to watch the keynote on apple.com yesterday (after it was finished, so no live stream). It wouldn't load. I was forced to watch it in Google Chrome, for which apple purposely uploaded a low-res, low framerate version.
Click to expand...

I like Safari. I do. But I have to admit that some other browsers do what Safari can't do.

I had the same issue with the keynote, I couldn't watch it in Safari so I had to watch it with Firefox, which is a little silly. You know, not being able to watch an Apple keynote on an Apple program.
 
SR45

SR45

macrumors 65832
Aug 17, 2011
1,501
0
Florida
MacDawg said:
I actually moved from Chrome to Safari because it was much quicker for me and works flawlessly

Chrome is my second choice from time to time when I need 2 browsers open to login to sites

I gave up on the slow and bloated Firefox long ago
Click to expand...

Started with Safari, went to Chrome for a few days, then returned to Safari. Don't know what apps you have, if they are Safari compatible or not, but I have no issues with mine running. ;) :)

PS: I have Flash installed and works
 
K

KScottMyers

macrumors 6502
Jul 17, 2009
252
7
Orlando, FL
Krazy Bill said:
This is another one of those enigmas I can't understand. While I never doubt the people here that claim these problems I just never experience them. Since OSX 10.5 most things have simply worked for me.

Sure, there have been (and always will be) the blatant quirks and design flaws but I've yet to come across any show stoppers. I had a kernel panic back in '09 though if that makes anyone feel better.

As far as browsers go, Safari has always worked blazingly fast for me. If there are any subtle differences between chrome, FireFox, Opera... I sure can't see them. (Although FireFox has a wealth of awesome plug-ins).

A long time ago I resigned myself to try to use as many native Apple apps as I could which were made for the OS. Made sense then. Makes sense today.
Click to expand...

Agreed - I can't really use other browsers. Safari just feels right. Its fast, renders pages fine and I never feel like I'm missing any features. Just don't understand why others have issues with it.

If you also consider how it ties into iCloud for tabs and bookmark syncing for iOS, OS X and Windows - its pretty amazing.
 
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