Safari has become unusable on Mac

Update your MacOS software, you may not be using MacOS 14.6.1.

Also make sure you do not have any:

• Cleaners
• Optimizers
• AntiVirus
• VPN

If after reviewing that information, you are still having problems, there may be a conflict process launching on startup that is causing the problem. The best approach to identify that is to post the free EtreCheck report using the Additional Text option when posting. The report contains no personal information and was developed by a fellow user here on these forums to help diagnose these exact type of problems.

Using EtreCheck - Apple Community

If you conclude that Safari is just as slow despite following all those recommendations, then you have effectively isolated the problem to a cause beyond the app itself.

Please determine if the same problems occur in "Safe Mode": How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support.

Please read If Safari doesn't open a page or work as expected on your Mac - Apple Support. You already performed some of its recommendations (such as removing potentially conflicting Safari Extensions) but solving the problem requires methodically following each step.

I installed Safari Technology Preview to mitigate these issue until Safari is fixed. The Preview version is a game changer. Current version of Safari was literally driving me insane.

There is not much I can offer you without seeing the EtreCheck report. It also shows Kernel Panics that may point to a Hardware issue if that is that cause.

All I can say is that Sonoma and Safari work fine opening the link you provided and that only appears to be an issue with your device. You cannot point the blame on Sonoma or Safari for that one or you would see this thread flooded with the same issue.

If you are looking for assistance, then provide the EtreCheck report. If not, that is OK too, and maybe someone else will be able to offer a solution for you.

Mac Jim ID

a reformatted Mac Studio with ONLY Safari and the OS installed exhibits this behavior. You want to say it's hardware, fine. Apple insists the hardware is fine. They have done so repeatedly.

there are no extensions. No 3rd party apps. No hidden virulent software running in the background.

It's Safari. or it's Sonoma. or it's the Hardware. because that's all there was installed. There's no steps to take eliminating culprits. take out the OS, Safari, or the hardware... and you've got no way to test.

[Edited by Moderator]

I can view websites, but cannot engage with them. For that, I have to use Chrome. Apple doesn't care, apparently, and I'm not the Apple products believer I used to be either. Looks like I'm going to have to get creative with my next PC.

Cannot engage with Weather Underground half the time. It takes a long time to load if it loads at all anymore. Switching to Chrome, it loads fast and the weather radar works like it should ! Huffington Post - forget about writing comments unless using Chrome. Any complex website will have problems with Safari.

[Edited by Moderator]

Yes, Safari is really bad these days. It is freezing often when videos are involved and also there is often no sound until you fanagle it ti work somehow. There are other things that do not work as well on websites. So what I do is copy the URL of the not working website into Chrome and it works every time. There are two features of Safari that keep me being punished by using it, the password system and the Export to PDF. If not for that I would never use it. What is wrong with development and quality control? This is Ventura 13.1. I hope it better when I upgrade. Safari is currently pathetic. I cannot upgrade until VMware is available for Sonoma. I seems like Apple is not that interested in quality control and improvement of convenience features on the Mac. It could be so much better. Too bad because it is so much more reliable than Windows.

I am at my wit's end with Safari. There are a plethora of quality issues. Websites load slowly or not at all. Searches in the URL bar often do nothing. Just extremely poor performance across the board. Every time I have a problem with Safari I plug the URL in Chrome and boom it works right away. You have to wonder why so many Apple products are antiquated. They know the features we want but they never add them. The only thing Apple does well is cross-product servicing across iCloud so you can have your data, messages, emails, etc, wherever you go. Date / Safari December 30th, 2023 is still junk and over the last 6 months has just gotten so much worse.

It’s too bad, MacBook Air 2024 M3 doesn’t work better, safari doesn’t work. So many issues I found, screen freezings, website opening issues but mostly the screen freezes in safari all the time. what’s going on Apple company.

I really regret that I wasted my money on this laptop.

Safari Version 17.5 (19618.2.12.11.6)

Mac Studio Apple M2 Ultra

Safari does NOT load the iphone web page at Apple dot com

this one:

iPhone - Apple

reboots, relaunches of the app... nothing.

Apple... WTH?

Safari used to be swift and stable but now it's slow and buggy. Some sites I can't log into, page render is slow, some web forms don't work properly. I tend to use Firefox or Chrome more and more. BTW I'm using version 17.6

randomkeypress wrote:

I don't have time fixing other peoples conflicts when it's easier to switch browser

And I don't have time to fix other people's problems, when they're not interested in fixing them.

randomkeypress wrote:

Safari used to be swift and stable but now it's slow and buggy. Some sites I can't log into, page render is slow, some web forms don't work properly. I tend to use Firefox or Chrome more and more. BTW I'm using version 17.6

Never had a problem using Safari to log into pages or with web forms and pages render fast. Of course if you are using Extensions that could be the source of your problems. Even third party sites report that Safari is faster than Chrome and with Safari you are not subject to the extensive data mining built into Chrome to sell your information to advertisers. Firefox remained in last place.

https://www.macworld.com/article/2302112/how-apple-made-safari-about-60-faster-speedometer-3.html