Safari just EATS up memory

I'm on an Alu iMac (specs in sig), and Safari just seems to completely eat up memory.

My computer's been on for about 3 hours now (according to iStat Pro), and Safari is using up 153mb worth of RAM. I just emptied the cache, and it's still using 77mb, and that number rises very rapidly.

Safari hasn't been running that whole time. I frequently close the window, and also quit the application. I haven't been watching any flash videos on YouTube or anything of the sorts, just looking at some images on websites and reading forums.

Is there anything I can do to get Safari's memory usage down?

 

If its accumulating RAM usage just sitting there, Safari likely has a memory leak. Memory leaks are issues that plague browsers, it seems.

 

Any way to cure it? Or at least slow it down somewhat?

 

wait for a patch or use a different browser.

 

My safari seems to lag lately. I click a link and open a new tab and it starts lagging for about 5 seconds. I think im gonna do a system cache clean with onyx or something to see if it does anything.

 

Try deleting your cookies.

 

Doesn't Safari fail with cookies? It stores them linearly or something? So that it has to go through each and every cookie every time a request is made for one?

 

Which is why I suggested deleting cookies in order to cure the lag ItsDaKronic's is experiencing. Of course his lag could be caused by something else, for example a corrupted file in the application package.

 

Well compared to firefox, that isn't too bad. I just have 4 tabs open and its eating 132 mb.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148111

 

Just FYI, that's desktop RAM, it won't fit in a notebook (need 200-pin RAM).

 

Throwing RAM at a memory leak is like building a 3-sided fort. I suggest shutting down Safari when you aren't using it. If I leave FF running "for days" it grows to fill available system resources. Memory leaks can come from browser code, add-ons, java, plug-ins, etc, etc, etc, which means they are very common. Another approach would be adblock for safari. By shutting down some of that flash-based ad content you might enjoy more browser stability.

 

lol i don't think desktop memory will help.

 

I am pretty sure the OP is on a iMac....and not a notebook.

 

I'm beginning to notice Safari eating a ton of memory, too. Just crazy. Quitting it and restarting helps, for a while, and I even emptied my cookies, too.

 

Most of the RAM is being eaten up by page caches and what not. If you have been visiting a lot of sites and don't need what you have cached, periodically go to safari>reset safari and clear all those caches out. You'll see that RAM usage usually goes down and then will start climbing again as you visit more sites.
Its always a good idea to just quit safari when you don't need it anymore. The OS will eventually clean-up anything safari forgot to clean-up itself.

 

Jeez. I closed all its windows but left the actual application running, and it was eating 250MB just then. Crazy. Closing it and restarting the application seems to fix it, but for how long?

Very interesting.

 

Hmm, mine seems to hover around 175MB only jumping to 200+ if I have a bunch of tabs open and haven't cleared anything for awhile.

 

Clearing the cache definitely helps.

 

I agree that throwing RAM is not the answer. However if Safari was having a massive memory leak problem then we would be seeing LOTS of posts.

That said RAM is super cheap, and 1gig is fine but Leopard will run much better on 2gig or more. So if he is going to crack open that iMac, YES ITS AN iMAC in his original post "I'm on an Alu iMac (specs in sig), and Safari just seems to completely eat up memory." for those who told me my link was for desktop ram......then he would be wise to max it out for $88. That RAM is top notch and has a lifetime warranty.

 

Sorry bout not realizing he was on an iMac, I'd forgotten that fact by the time I got down to the post about RAM and I default to assuming people are using notebooks, due to the nature of the forums.

 

Hey guise. I own a blackbook 2.4Ghz with 4Gb of RAM and it still is ting on me. It doesn't matter if I use firefox or safari 4. When I'm playing or watching flash based games, videos suddenly it eats like 200 RAM and that's not all It increases the processor usage to 110% That's why I'm going back to windows machine.

 

Sounds about right. Don't forget, your MAX CPU is 200%, since it's a dual core. 110% on intensive apps sounds right, and so does 200MB RAM.

 

But man, it doesn't sound right besides the friggin' 13.3inch laptop's fans start to yell at me and the heat is enormous never ever experienced this kind of thing on ma old dell, except when I watched HD movies But anyways like someone mentioned clearing up the cache helped me for a while

 

Yea I'm surprised once in a while safari gobbles up 1gb or more.

 

I'm a bit new to Apple computers, how do you check how much memory it's using?

 

Go to the apple site and look for a widget called iStat. Thats what I use

 

I had a problem with safari when watching a clip in youtube. they were some very short lags, but just made me wonder what happened. I just got the macbook from amazon, so it is brand new with no other stuff going on.

 

Another option is to type in checking the performance in the help menu and open activity monitor.

 

iMacs take notebook memory AFAIK.