Safari Web Content high CPU usage

I'M SITTING HERE WRITING THIS WITH MY MOUTH WIDE OPEN right now! ! Does anyone know how many hours I have been reseraching this problem?? And all it took was simply logging out of google ffs? Like really? Not a single discussion or forum I've been to over the last 5-6 hrs mentions a word about this google safari flash plugin problem - not one! I stumbled upon this thread by pure dumb luck and boy am I shocked to learn that this is the culprit for my mac overheating so much lately! I'm just so insanely stunned right now! I thought it was the java game applets while I'm on Pogo, but it wasn't! I just signed out of google (I'm still playing a java based game) and my CPU reading just went from 189% down to 4.2% - are you kidding me??

I don't understand how no one knows about this! Like *** is up with google and flash? I just spent half the night doing 18 different things to try and lower the CPU usage when all it took was a millisecond to log out of my google account? No one thought to fix a known problem or at least share with the world a workaround until they did? 😮

That's ignorant...people are just ignorant. 😁 😁

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR HELPING ME YOU GUYS! 😉

I did get the new MBA with core i7 and 8 GB RAM and now it is no longer totally impossible to use Google maps in Safari - it is still not fast, but I do not need to restart Safari & the computer every day ... .

I was having problems with Safari Web Content gobbling up memory. I have removed all extensions, removed flash, reset Safari and everything but still the same thing is happening, at 3 tabs open I get like more than 250MB used up by the the Safari Web Content.

I have read your post and immediately disable Safari bookmark sync from System Pref. I am running 10.7.5 by the way on an early '08 BlackBook 2.4C2D with 4GB RAM. Voila! Safari web content is at around 150+MB with the same 3 tabs open. Reasonable enough.

Thanks for this useful post.

How is it that YEARS have gone by and this problem still persists? Apple wants to say it's Adobe's Flash Player. Except Chrome, Firefox, etc dont have this problem. They can all have multiple tabs open and not peg the CPU and suck up gigabytes of memory. They dont spin the fan up and drag the machine to a halt. Only Apple's own default browser does this.

IT'S ONLY SAFARI!!! And it's been that way for many years now.

Why is this problem not fixed?

It seems rediculous that people are doing things like wiping their machine and reinstalling the OS to try to fix this problem... when all the other broswers JUST WORK. No tweaks, no hacks.

I would also like to add that I REALLY LIKE SAFARI. It's my favorite browser. I love the OS integration. But I CANNOT STAND MY FAN BEING ON CONSTANTLY. Nor my CPU being taxed 24/7. Nor my memory being gobbled up.

Last night I checked, and Safari had eaten up 6.7GB of memory!!!! 😮 For having tabs open?? Really???? This morning, after closing some tabs, its down to a 'respectable' 2.57GB 😟

Safari 6.0.5 / 10.8.4 / MacBook Pro Retina 15" / 2.7GHz i7 / 16gb RAM / 768gb SSD

Yes Jon, it could be this or it could be that, but the fact that a large number of users have been having these same issues, for years now, does imply that perhaps Safari has some weakness. Or, perhaps there are a couple factors that are highly likely to be causing this, that may be easily corrected. If this is so, I would expect that Apple could at least be a bit more hands on, and share these fixes with the many users experiencing great frustration.

I would think that a browser created "in-house", with an Apple computer, and Apple OS, etc, would operate more efficiently than a third-party one, such as Chrome, which these days does work better for me, than Safari.

I would also hope some Apple employees would be monitoring these user forums, as it's a no-brainer that any company wants to know how it's customers are doing, what things they are digging, and what things they are having problems with. Plus, it's a business win/win, as it would be appreciated by their customers, and also cut down on what I'm sure must be many calls to their phone-support techs.

I've been quite frustrated with Safari, as I prefer to use it, but it just becomes unworkable, and more quickly than other browsers I have. In fact, when 5.1 first came out, it was a nightmare, and when I called in, a higher level tech person told me they were aware of the bugs, and were working on a fix ASAP. However, when I called back a few weeks later, as the issues hadn't as yet been addressed, the people I spoke with denied they ever acknowledged any issues, or bugs with it. Well, I don't think I was hallucinating that night, and do think they may have been told to say that to people, cause hey, it's pretty easy to say "it's not Safari, it's something you're doing"....

I cant force Chrome or Firefox to misbehave like Safari. Right now I have at least 50 tabs open in Chrome. No fan. No CPU taxing. Yes, each tab uses memory. But they tend to not tax the CPU when you're not using them. And the fan never ramps up.

But as soon as I change to Safari and restore my last 20 tab session? The fan instantly kicks on. The CPU instantly kicks up. These are not 20 tabs with excessive Flash content. In fact, I cant see any Flash content at all.

And Facebook really exasperates the problem w/Safari. The more you scroll down in the feed, the longer your session, the more memory and resources Safari eats up. But I can do the same thing in Chrome or Firefox with no problems. No fan, no CPU, no memory leaking or hogging. Why is that?

And I am definitely not alone here. Others have said the same thing about Facebook. Its so bad that I just cant use Safari for Facebook. Not for more than just a brief period. It just doesnt seem like it should be this bad. Why can the other broswers do what Safari cant? Why does Safari tax the CPU and spin up the fans when the other browsers dont?

I have disabled all 3rd party extensions. I have the latest OS and Flash player updates. And I'm not about to reinstall my OS. This is a brand new machine, and this problem has persisted pretty much as long as I can rememeber with Safari. Multiple OS'es, multiple machines, multiple processors. The only consistent factor between them all is SAFARI. So please tell me how I am supposed to supect anything other than Safari. Its been years and years of this, and I keep thinking "they'll eventually fix that..." but here we are still dealing with it.

And the crap part is, I love Safari! So I keep coming back to it. I want to use it as my default browser. In fact, despite these problems, it still is. But unless you just wanna keep it simple with like maybe under 10 tabs, and not use Facebook... it's pretty difficult to ONLY use Safari (like I would like to).

So, after checking through all the items in the menu bar, login items, & processes in the Activity Monitor, which by the way, a great many I "don't understand" and have no clue whatsoever as to what they are, you say it's working better, but have no idea which ones may have been the culprits in running up RAM usage, etc? Believe it or not, not that many of us wish to spend a day going one by one, through all the alien sounding named processes, login & menu bar programs, trying to figure out A) what they are, B) if they aren't essential to using the computer, and C) if they may be corrupted, out-dated, or just not working....

With so many people, many being very experienced, advanced, long time users, having issues with Safari for YEARS, it still is very curious that Apple, or even some "power users" have no advice more specific than check through every process, plug in, program, etc, to find out on your own, what might be causing all these problems. Are there really no small number of these programs/processes that are more likely than others to be at fault, really? Every person must in effect, pull the motor & transmission from the car, and go over every piece, individually? I sure have no clue as what many of the items listed in the Activity Monitor do, if they are essential, can be uninstalled, updated, or checked. To have every user, no matter their level of expertise do such a task may end up totally screwing up people's computers, should they uninstall or delete the wrong things.. There has to be a better way, and why can't any of the costly utility programs offered diagnose all those things, or Apple's own disk utility?

I think you make a good point. Laptops and desktops are no less complex than they were 15 years ago. Whether Windows or OS X, you might have to spend significant time running down the problem, or significant $ having someone do it for you to make any app work, whether you got it as part of the OS, or downloaded it. Apple has been moving toward a sandbox where apps are separated from the OS, where "illegal" programming doesn't jump the barriers in the System and between programs. Many apps, including Chrome and FireFox, are free to ignore whatever parameters they wish. If installing Google Drive on your laptop is your desire, it is not available in the App Store because it does not meet its criteria for playing well with others. On OS X, you can still download many, or any, such apps/programs

Many people complain about "open vs. closed", but many intelligent people find iOS on iPhone or iPad functional and almost problem-free (and very secure). Mac OS X is still the Wild West in those terms. There are legacy programs, creative programs, and experiments that exist side-by-side with well-crafted apps/programs that play by the rules.

We are many years away from Safari warning you that your old installation is screwing with your current settings, or from utilities diagnosing what horrible cruft is still on your computer. There's a certain reality: sometimes a problem may be sufficiently complex that an online forum will not solve your problem, or that you might not have the time or inclination to troubleshoot it.

I did say that DivX was a problem; I did say that you should remove Internet Plugins from your Library folder that you don't use, and to delete those things in your User that startup Login that you can't identify, or have no desire to confront daily.

I am a power user (more: I maintained dozens of OS X Macs in several careers), and I still have problems. I have also mostly solved the problem with Safari. You complain about the Real Memory that Safari occupies, and I maintain that is not a good metric. CPU % is a beginning, but it is only an indication of possible problems, and not diagnostic. You can decide to determine what processes are normal, and which are zombies by simply looking a few of them up on Google. It doesn't take that long.

Also, despite your complaints, you haven't mentioned which menu bar or logins that you experience. This is a two-way street. You tell us your details, we'll suggest next steps. It doesn't work for you to say "I looked at that, no problem". WHICH plugins WHICH logins? Not that we don't trust you, but reporting is a [detailed] two-way street.

So, before you diss Apple again, please tell us that you have not found DivX files on your computer, list your login startups, and tell us what Internet Plugins you have.

JohnMM wrote:

...

I did say that DivX was a problem; I did say that you should remove Internet Plugins from your Library folder that you don't use, and to delete those things in your User that startup Login that you can't identify, or have no desire to confront daily.

I am a power user (more: I maintained dozens of OS X Macs in several careers), and I still have problems. I have also mostly solved the problem with Safari. You complain about the Real Memory that Safari occupies, and I maintain that is not a good metric. CPU % is a beginning, but it is only an indication of possible problems, and not diagnostic. You can decide to determine what processes are normal, and which are zombies by simply looking a few of them up on Google. It doesn't take that long.

Also, despite your complaints, you haven't mentioned which menu bar or logins that you experience. This is a two-way street. You tell us your details, we'll suggest next steps. It doesn't work for you to say "I looked at that, no problem". WHICH plugins WHICH logins? Not that we don't trust you, but reporting is a [detailed] two-way street.

So, before you diss Apple again, please tell us that you have not found DivX files on your computer, list your login startups, and tell us what Internet Plugins you have.

I think everybody has the right to diss Apple when it comes to this issue and a few other ones.

I see the Safari problem on an ongoing basis with people who couldn't be any farther from power users, who's mac looks just like the last time I visited them, who have never heard of DIVX, who don't have any menu bar / system / whatever enhancements, ... and only have the common extras on their system to work with office files, read/edit pdf files, view flash online, etc.

Pick any Mac with any version of OS X and Safari will misbehave after a while. In the last few years, with the newest intel core systems, the problem is more hidden with multiple GBs of RAM (>4GB) minimizing caching and now solid state drives which eliminate the hard drive paging bottleneck. That said, you can still get Safari to become unresponsive on a quad core i7 with more ram than all your previous computers combined, and surprise surprise, Safari or its web content sibling just blew past 3GB of RAM.

I have no DivX anywhere, I cleared plug ins I don't use or need, and I also don't need any self-appointed user-forum nazis to demand I do this and do that, "not that you don't trust me".... well why should I trust you? You might demand I do things that totally screw up my OS, how do I know? That fact that you are a PowerUser, have maintained "dozens of OS X Macs", and STILL HAVE PROBLEMS, pretty much makes our point, thank you.... If even an advanced, longtime poweruser has issues, what hope is there for the rest of us? I think Apple should be quite capable of creating a browser that works without grinding to a halt more often than even third party browsers, no?

Please note that I no longer suffer from the ill-defined, "memory-leak", and I can use Safari with multiple tabs consistently. No "nazi... demand" here. Do what you want, and change to Chrome, or FireFox, or Opera, if it suits you. I made a different point. Computers are complex, and trivial and indirect actions sometimes cause complex problems. If you don't like how Safari performs, you have options of other browsers, or you can troubleshoot the problem, or pay someone to do it for you (though the Apple geniuses will do quite a bit for free). Whining in a tech forum seems gratuitous. Believe me, Apple gets it. They monitor the forums, and have a deep knowledge of the choices they are making. It's not a simple calculus of something working all the time as much as it is something working within the context of everything working together. Mozilla and Google don't have a dog in that fight, and they can take shortcuts.

Not everyone has 20 tabs open (or even know what tabs are), and even novice users are encouraged by peers to "use FireFox" or "use Chrome" instead of Safari even before they know much about their computers, so it seems there's an odd group here that demands that Safari operate with 30 tabs open, and that it do so without examining the complex factors that might make that difficult. It's not that hard to make another browser your default, so you might talk about what you'd miss if you did. You didn't say why you won't switch, and you don't say why you have to have dozens of tabs open.

After working in technical support for a long time, I recognize that it's not simply about trust, but about specificity. If you say you have no DivX anywhere, how did you determine that? If you cleared unused plugins, where did you find them? You say that you did that as if we have a common understanding, but I don't know if you searched for plugins in Spotlight, looked in your user Library, or looked in your root Library, and I don't know what you have, or what you deleted, or even if you can access your hidden Librarys in Lion or Mountain Lion. If you want to complain, then rate the system software in the store, and then come here to present or follow troubleshooting heuristics. "Everybody has the right to diss Apple" is an angry pause in the attempt to solve a problem. Seems mostly out of place here.

So, in order to properly ask a question here, saying there's no DIvX on my computer, means I must also keep copious notes as to every step I've taken to make that determination, explain to you where I found internet plugins, & keep a consice history of every step taken in the few years of dealing with Safari issues? Sorry, I'm not that fastidiuous a geek, I just expect Apple products to function fairly smoothly on Apple machines. I don't understand the idea of other browsers "using shortcuts" as "they have no dog in the fight", and that's why they can operate better with more tabs open, if they can, why are the shortcuts a bad thing?

And yes I also note CPU usage, not only RAM use, etc, assuming all of us who post here have zero understanding of these things is no help either. Just because something is not said, doesn't imply it's not taken into account. Perhaps after posting copious actions previously taken, many times over the years, I just don't bother, and perhaps all the "whining" you see on these forums is the result of too many posts, and too many long troubleshooting sessions w/Apple techs over the phone, and we're just a bit frustrated....

I think at this point we just need to ignore the people who think they have the solution to this problem. It CERTAINLY is not as simple as logging out of Google. The problem has been there long before Google even allowed a login!

I HAVE NEVER INSTALLED DIVX. Please give it a rest w/this.

I have seen this issue for YEARS. On multiple OS'es, multuple machines, multuple processors, and multuple versions of Safari. THE ONLY CONSISTENT FACTOR IS SAFARI.

Its been said before, but it needs to be reiterated: If other browsers can play nice, Safari should be able to as well. Apple's own default browser should perform AT LEAST as good as 3rd party ones, if not better.

And its a bit silly to simply claim ALL the users who have been experiencing this problem for so long are just secretly suffering from some unknown, obscure plug-in or extension. OH DANG! We're all running DIVX and just too stupid to realize it. Think not.

I have been working professionally with Macintosh computers since 1995. I am, by defintion, a power user. And it doesnt take a power user to realize that Safari performs differently than other browsers.

But all this is really just talk in the wind, as this thread is marked as FIXED. I think we need to create a new thread, and escalate this problem. Because right now the only people talking about this are users.

I have been struggling with Safari web content for quite a number of years: high CPU usage and memory hogging.

By conincidence I found out that some web-sites cause high CPU load, the best culprit for me is spiegel.de

Can anybody hazard a guess why this might be?

The difference is drmatic when I close spiegel.de: when it is open the CPU load stays around 100%, when I close it it is down to 20%.

Do a google search on spiegel.de and this is most relevant response I found? Do you remember visiting a German site recently?

Spiegel Online is the online sibling of Germany's print weekly Der Spiegel. It was launched in 1994 and is one of the most visited German language news websites. Wikipedia

https://www.google.com/webhp?source=search_app#gs_rn=20&gs_ri=psy-ab&tok=5vzHEu- _2zNFbpkQpk3adQ&cp=10&gs_id=4&xhr=t&q=spiegel.de&es_nrs=true&pf=p&output=search& sclient=psy-ab&oq=spiegel.de&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.49784469, d.aWM&fp=dbd40e074ea0c8e1&biw=1606&bih=842