Safari 5 hangs a LOT so far

Was your initial problem the hanging blue bar on just some of the links? That is my problem. Some links open super fast with massive flash content yet another link just takes forever to open. One day a link that I opened easlly the other day will hang the next time. Really frustrating, tried everything solution but the open DNS.

tried everything solution but the open DNS.

Why not?

Adding Open DNS codes to your Network Preferences, should give good results in terms of speed-up as well as added security:

If you are using a single computer: Open System Preferences/Network. Double click on your connection type, or select it in the drop-down menu, and in the box marked 'DNS Servers' add the following two numbers:

208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

(You can also enter them if you click on Advanced and then DNS)

Sometimes reversing the order of the DNS numbers can be beneficial in cases where there is a long delay before web pages start to load, and then suddenly load at normal speed:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2296

If your computer is part of a network: please refer to this page: http://www.opendns.com/start/bestpractices/#yournetwork and follow the advice given.

You could also try these codes as well: 4.2.2.1 & 4.2.2.2

If you use a Router, make sure it has the latest firmware installed.

Just want to add that I am also experiencing a lot of problems with sites not loading in Safari 5, particularly those with Flash, but some non-Flash sites, too. Today I made Firefox my default browser because of the problems. If the issues with Safari get resolved I'll go back to it, but not until then. Very annoying...

Safari 5 is the WORST browser I have ever used!
So many issues...

I am experiencing Safari crashes/ freezes periodically. This occurs with random web pages.

Thanks Klaus1, on my white iMac with my 2Wire gateway connected by ethernet, the two open DNS codes have seemed to solved the hanging problem. Everything is super quick with not one "hang" so far.
Reason for not doing this originally was that I felt this was a problem that Apple should resolve but I gave up on that. Anyway I also have a silver iMac using airport wireless to my white iMac. There is still the hanging blue bars occurring although it seems not as much (coincidence?). Is there something I should do for that? Before Snow Leopard and Safari 5 updates, definitely both computers were practically the same speed internet wise. No complaints fromthe kids which computer to use for the internet. Thanks!

The big improvement to my S5 performance was-as noted earlier-after I updated the firmware to my Netgear WGR614v6 router. Then Namebreaker directed me to different servers as fastest-as also noted earlier-but also showed that all servers had performed much, much faster after the firmware update.

Adding Open DNS codes to your Network Preferences, should
give good results in terms of speed-up as well as added security:

As for the problem with Safari hanging a lot, Open DNS is the only fix that worked for me. I tried other suggestions that I had read about here, but all had either zero or negligible effect. With Open DNS my Safari is now as fast as Firefox.

Update.........Just added the two DNS numbers to settings for my silver iMac Network preferences and Bingo! Super duper fast loading.

I'm afraid Open DNS didn't help me at all. Removed it, I think, after I noticed I had those DNS numbers already entered in my Network Settings.

I don't care much for Firefox. The interface makes me think of Windoze and I don't care for the way it handles bookmarks. I'll try Chrome today.

Apple really screwed the pooch on this one. I've used Macs for almost thirty years and have never had so many problems in such a short time.

To all the people looking for faster DNS Servers why don't you try Googles' application "Namebench".

It will find the fastest & nearest DNS Servers available to you from a range of open platform DNS services such as OpenDNS,as well as from a range of commercial ISP's DNS Servers in your specific geographical location.

There are versions for Mac,Windows and Linux and you can find it here:

http://code.google.com/p/namebench/

I highly recommend giving it a try as it has helped quite a few people in this thread.

Best of luck.5klors

Oops! My bad-I said I used Namebreaker, but I should have said Namebench (senior moment)!

Did the 5.0.1 upgrade fix the problem? Web pages for me, at least initially, hang less often, and those that do, seem to resolve themselves faster. Still not as fast as Chrome, however.

In the upgrade notes, Apple says that the upgrade corrects a problem where DNS prefetching is too fast for some routers.

Seems good to me for now, I will post back.

I too have been having this problem, and after reading this thread exhaustively, decided to look into external issues as the culprit.

I am using a Linksys WRT54g, and noticed there was a firmware update available for it, so I went ahead and applied it. Previous to this upgrade, Safari would beach ball all the time. Since upgrading, I haven't had a beach ball once. In fact, I've noticed smoother web browsing in general since the update.

It's not a panacea, but it appears external network issues can in fact be a cause of the beachballing. I'd suggest anyone experiencing this to look into it.