Q: Safari running slow in Yosemite

Found a fix for the lag that comes up when opening new tabs and trying to type in the URL field.

Go to Favorites>Search> and disable Show Favorites. This solved the annoying "beach ball of death" for me.

Looks like I was wrong. It's back, but seemed to be fixed. Takes up to 3-4 seconds to open a new tab sometimes. Awful.

same issue with slow tabs.

Can anyone else try this for a test?

Go to Utilities, open Console. Then try to open / close tabs or select / deselect address bar. For me it starts showing up this message every time a lag occurs.

PressAndHold[1815]: IMK Stall detected, *please Report* your user scenario in <rdar://problem/16792073> - (activateServer) block performed very slowly (6.53 secs)

Seems to be an issue with the new PressAndHold functionality in Yosemite. Can't find a way to kill it so far, it restarts even if I run a Terminal command.

Same problem here.  None of the above fixes helped even after multiple restarts.

It's really sad that Firefox works better on Yosemite than apple's native web-browsing app Safari...kind of embarrassing.

Same problem.  Simple fix if like me you just want Safari to operate essentially as it did before.

I've never commented before.  Consider my computer skills inferior to an 8 year-old, and was shocked to find my hunch actually worked.

The problem seems to lie in the operating system trying to integrate every aspect of its functionality and content with every type of search conducted in either Safari or Spotlight which is now a jumble at best (I'm back to searching in the finder) and seems to snack on email content.

So, in Safari, open preferences.

Select the Search Icon

From the pulldown I have selected google as my search engine.

I have selected Include Search Engine Suggestions which are often useful and occasionally comical.

Do not select any of the smart search settings.

It seems to send Safari on a wide ranging search of the African Savannah to load a simple webpage because it looks everywhere else first before it loads.  If after all that hunting about it thinks it might have the page or a piece of it somewhere local then it gets a headache instead of just looking for it on the web in the first place.

I have no idea what smart search is or why I would want to search spotlight on my browser or the web from spotlight but apparently it's so smart it's "too smart for its own good."  Huh, maybe artificial intelligence is already here.  Yosemite has a sense of irony.

Same problem.  Simple fix if like me you just want Safari to operate essentially as it did before.

I've never commented before.  Consider my computer skills inferior to an 8 year-old, and was shocked to find my hunch actually worked.

The problem seems to lie in the operating system trying to integrate every aspect of its functionality and content with every type of search conducted in either Safari or Spotlight which is now a jumble at best (I'm back to searching in the finder) and seems to snack on email content.

So, in Safari, open preferences.

Select the Search Icon

From the pulldown I have selected google as my search engine.

I have selected Include Search Engine Suggestions which are often useful and occasionally comical.

Do not select any of the smart search settings.

It seems to send Safari on a wide ranging search of the African Savannah to load a simple webpage because it looks everywhere else first before it loads.  If after all that hunting about it thinks it might have the page or a piece of it somewhere local then it gets a headache instead of just looking for it on the web in the first place.

I have no idea what smart search is or why I would want to search spotlight on my browser or the web from spotlight but apparently it's so smart it's "too smart for its own good."  Huh, maybe artificial intelligence is already here.  Yosemite has a sense of irony.

have cleared extensions, history and everything else in this thread. Apple your update ( yoseshite ) sorry yosemite *****.  my ancient pc is now faster than a £1000 mac.

apart from going back to maverick, which i cant do what options are there now. and YES im asking APPLE not the brilliant forum members trying to find solutions to this problem.

Your suggestion immediately got rid of the lag in Safari for me. Thanks so much!!!

tried earlier, worked at first, but now after opening something ( not sure what ) , just surfing  , its back ( lag )

Just to add to the thread- EXACTLY the same problem here. Sometimes Safari works fine but I write this now using Chrome with Safari stalled in the background at about 15% 'loaded'. I've tried all the listed tricks, but as you say, a restart is the only fix.

Same behaviour on another older MacbookPro. This: a Mid 2012 MBPro Retina.

sigh.....

Did you try to delete com.apple.safari.extensions.plist? That did the trick for me

After working fine for a few days, Safari 8.0.2 has locked up at 15% again this morning.

I also notice that none of the gadgets are loading too, so perhaps whatever is choking Safari runs deeper than the browser.

Chrome fine as I type...

This seemed to work for me. Although i just tried it. I guess in time I will see if it permanent.Although, I am still bouncing back between Safari and Firefox.

Thanks, for now....

I had the same problem.  After more than 6 technical support calls with Apple, reloading Yosemite once myself and once at the Genius Bar where they wiped my hard drive and returned my Macbook Air to factory settings, more calls and a second trip to the Genius Bar when nothing had made much of a difference, I thought maybe it was an isp problem.  I did some speed tests (www.speedtest.net) and compared the results with my 2007 Macbook running Snow Leopard and another 2013 Macbook Air running Mavericks.  Both computers passed with flying colors while my 2012 Macbook Air on Yosemite had a download speed of under 2 mbps (often under 1).  I also tested in another location and isp with the same results.  I bought and installed a new wireless ac router and was amazed at the results.  Problem solved.  There remains the question of why none of the Apple support people mentioned a possible router problem.