Safari Web Content high CPU usage

Spiegel.de does have Flash content running constantly, which can be quite the cpu hit.

The Safari extension Ghostery blocks that on the site, you might also test with click to flash, which prevents Flash from loading unless you choose it.

I have a Powerbook 1.67 GHz and a MacBook 4,1 2.4GHz. Powerbook is on Leopard and MB is on Lion, on which I use Safari on both machines. I tried the other browsers like chrome and firefox, but after couple of days of test drives, i still keep coming back to Safari. Previously, my Safari would almost crawl to a halt even with just less than 10 tabs open. I have seen and read this thread and tried some of the suggestion. I uninstalled every plugin that I don't need and basically uninstalled flash. Removed all and turn off extensions. I have installed Glimmerblocker for blocking ads. And after doing this, Safari has been responsive and fluid once again.

What I have learned from it is that, it is not Safari that is causing all of this, but probably poor coding on the side of the third-party plug-ins and extensions? I used to have Click-to-Flash and Adblock plus, Facebook Zoom and another one I cannot recall anymore. And also poor coding on the side of the web pages? Who knows, but as it stands right now, I would never install flash and everything that comes with it on all my computers.

I mostly use Safari's built in reader, so I don't need flash.

My MBP had all sorts of cpu loadings with all the browsers, mail and more. I finally removed Sophos Anti-Virus that I had installed more than a year ago. It never showed up on the process list so I never thought about it. Now, instead of 190F temps I have 95F and I don't need to purge every half hour or restart regularly. Things are moving much quicker now. I'm guessing Sophos was interacting with all those programs. Solved for me for now.

I have found Facebook to be a huge energy drain on Safari, nearly tripling the Web Content usage. I've also found other browsers having similar issues with Facebook. I think some of the blame is that FB has so many bells & whistles, popups & stuff refreshing constantly, that they are making their software overly cumbersome, and may drive users away, as it's no fun having everything slow down, and having to wait as it refreshes itself every time you want to do something there...

I'll add my voice to the crowd. Safari Web Content periodically spiking to 110% CPU usage w/ Real Mem use at 5Gb (Core i5 w/ 12Gb RAM). From what I understand, this is the result of a long-standing memory bug introduced in Snow Leopard that is (supposedly) finally squashed in Mavericks.

Yeah, I'm now looking at my S Web Content topping 4GB & up to 135% CPU Usage, with Safari about 100% & up to a GB of RAM.... This is sick, as I have about half as many windows open as usual, and do have Click To PlugIn installed so I've not got lots of active flash stuff going on. I sure hope Maverick deals with this persistant & maddening energy drain...

Update: after removing Sophos, I also removed Dropbox and even a bigger benefit. The mem expansion is still there, much less of a problem and the MBP is definitely much more responsive now. I still have to purge occasionally but nothing like before. Safari now seems to be reasonable again and so if Firefox.

I removed Dropbox from the Mac by following the Dropbox terminal instructions. The dropbox folder remains but the app and the CPU cycles disappear. For some reason Dropbox was consuming CPU and there was stuff in the dropbox but nothing new. I had read elsewhere it was a problem for some.

The Sophos reference is an anti-virus app for the Mac, it appeared to be scanning everything from dropbox to browser content and more. Safari and Firefox were almost unusable. When I removed the app, the load and temps came way back down. I have a 2008 MBP.

On Andy's recommendation I installed Ghostery a couple of weeks ago. I ticked all the block boxes and it really did the trick! No more over 100% CPU and full fan spin for me.

I have not even tried to research where the problem was- just happy to have the solution.

You might want to try removing it as a check. Neither of those Apps showed any CPU when I checked Activity Monitor. The virus scanner and dropbox were not even near the top of any list but made a huge difference when removed. Whatever has been added has to be suspect even if it doesn't appear in the CPU rankings especially things like virus scanner that protect themselves from being removed by staying out of sight. I could be wrong.

Supporting my earlier point that CPU usage is browser-agnostic, a NextWeb article talks about Chrome problems, and solutions.

One solution that no one has mentioned is to simply collect links systematically, rather than having dozens of windows or tabs open. If you had Word open with 20 or 30 documents, you might feel a bit sheepish when your computer grinds to a halt. Why is your browser different? Also, if Safari causes you problems, why haven't you already switched to Chrome, FireFox, or Opera?

Maybe someone will create an article on LifeHacker that talks about managing multiple open tabs 😝. Although I'm guilty as the next person (or I wouldn't be visiting this topic) there's a threshold beyond which open tabs are just a bit self-indulgent. That we expect Apple or Google or Mozilla to solve problems that we create, (since we can solve the problem by closing a few tabs or windows) seems a little backwards. Most of our toasters still don't get it right, and our toasts burns, or it doesn't quite brown the bread. Why do you think a complex amalgam of hardware and software networking to undisciplined sites worlds away is going to work perfectly?

That said, I've been free of problems for almost a month following the basic schema laid out here by me and others.

I tried Ghostery, but blocking everything screwed up some of the sites I use, like LinkedIn, etc... I wish there was some simple way to know which things to Whitelist, and which things are unneeded & an invasion that might slow things down.

JohnMM, what do you mean by collecting links systematically? Do you mean copying them to a document file, or? I often have 50-60 tabs open, however, even with far fewer, I've had the typical Safari slow downs, freezes, crashes, etc. If it were only when I had a lot of tabs open, I'd not be complaining so much. And if Apple believes the browser is fine, and the problems are mainly via too many tabs, why don't they just create a happening tab manager, that gives us a way to access many tabs, without it burdening the functioning of Safari? That would seem to me, a no-brainer. If they weaned everyone off of having so many open, with a way to get to the ones we want, it would be a win-win..... unless the issues many of us have are not solely caused by lots of open tabs...

I have no idea about "collecting links systematically" either.

What I tend to do, to curb Safari, is only have as many tabs open as fit in its window and split the load across 3-4 different browsers. If need be open open another window in one of them for a few more tabs.

Another issue I haven't gotten to the bottom of, yet, is that sometimes things just refuse to load in Safari, possibly because they're hanging on some bit from some 3rd party service. No data comes in (network monitor) then hit refresh, and boom it is all there.

I'm not an expert on this stuff but I had similar symptoms on both Chrome and Safari where the cpu was 20% on each and the browsers just refused to load. It wasn't my browsers though, it was the anti-virus program and perhaps the other app I removed (Dropbox). The browser CPU is now 0.2 again on my old 2008 MBP and I didn't change anything else. Oh, I did fix a cable modem speed (outbound) problem but that was after I saw the CPU improvement from dropping the app. Just a thought.