Really hope that Mavericks fixes Memory leak in Safari . . . For once !!!!

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Sitting there working away and doing some work on my Blog and low and behold i started to get the dreaded spinning ball.

I immediately Force Quit Every App except Safai as i couldn't loose what i had and need to save it. Finally got down to closing down the 4 other Tabs in Safari and in the mean time i opened up Activity Monitor to see what was going on (I had my suspicions that Safari was the culprit) and it blew me away at what it had leaked out.
Check out my screen shot and be amazed yourself.

Using the command line i got
Code:
server:~ tattooedmac$ uptime
 9:47  up 1 day, 17:32, 2 users
being my uptime.

So in 1 day 17 ½ hrs Safari has leaked quite considerably. Safari would of been open for about 1 day 12hrs with at times (Actually 12hrs looking at Activity Monitor which makes it even so much WORSE) 10 tabs for a couple of minutes as i peruse over my Twit Links and then i closed most of them, and had about 4 open, Mac-Forums, Cult of Mac (they have Dragon Dictation on special for Half price $100) My Blog and i misc, but i really, really, really, really, really, hope they have this fixed once and for all with this up and coming Mavericks (Mavericks ? Really ?? )

4.54GB.jpg
 

CrimsonRequiem


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How do you like it so far? I haven't had time to install it yet. I think I might do it on my Macbook Pro. Need to back it up first though. XD I tend not to use Safari. I only use it on iOS sadly. >_>"
 
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Well if he has got Mavericks he ain't supposed to say nothing!!
 
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How do you like it so far? I haven't had time to install it yet. I think I might do it on my Macbook Pro. Need to back it up first though. XD I tend not to use Safari. I only use it on iOS sadly. >_>"

Nah i haven't got it, I'm just really peeved that it still leaks in ML and i hope thats something they have fixed in Mavericks
 

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And this is why I can't recommend Safari to anyone. It offers little functionality that isn't offered elsewhere and it leaks memory left, right and centre. In my experience the problem is simple - Safari consumes but never releases memory. Might I suggest that you start using a good browser? ;)
 
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When I watched the keynote on Mavericks, the first thing i thought of was "will they fix Safari being such a memory hog once and for all?" I sure hope so.
 

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While there are a couple of features that are intriguing about Safari and I do give it a shot, since I seldom reboot my machine and end up having long uptimes, I can't deal with an application that leaks that much memory. So I'l continue being a Chrome user..:)
 
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That's weird. I have been using Safari ever since the latest update and it has been working great. I experienced a lot of lag with several applications, including Safari and Chrome, when I was on 10.8.2, but after I updated to 10.8.3 and then 10.8.4 things became smooth.

I just checked Activity Monitor and I posted the screenshot below.

I am not very tech-savy but I feel like 1.21GB memory consumption is a lot, especially considering I only have about four tabs open, two of which are Facebook and the other two forums (including this one).

What do you guys think? I have actually never used Safari as my default browser before, it's always been Chrome, but ever since the last update, as I mentioned earlier, I have been using it constantly and I like it. If it is going to be leaking memory, though, then I'd rather stay away from it, especially since I only have 4GB of RAM.


EDIT: Wow. I just tried Chrome with the very same tabs open and what a difference! I am glad I came across this thread.

Screen Shot 2013-06-19 at 3.30.01 PM.png

Screen Shot 2013-06-19 at 3.38.35 PM.png
 

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Chrome uses considerably more memory initially but does a much better job at containing it. Safari starts out using very little (relatively speaking) and continues to grow unrestrained. How this hasn't been fixed yet is beyond me.

I find this intriguing though - Apple uses Cocoa to develop it (so it should theoretically have less overhead than non-Cocoa browsers) and it's Apple designing a browser for their OS. Whereas much of their other software is top notch (although, to this day, it confuses me why iPhoto has to be 1.5GB), Safari is a disaster. At best, it plays catch up (iCloud syncing) and at worst, it falls to the back of the pack (memory usage). The only thing good about it is WebKit at this point.
 
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I have tried Safari 7 on Mavericks and it uses a lot less memory and seems to contain it as well. Not only that, but most applications open and close much, much quicker on Mavericks than they do on ML, which I guess is a positive thing.
 

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Not only that, but most applications open and close much, much quicker on Mavericks than they do on ML, which I guess is a positive thing.
That could be due to one of two things (or both): Mavericks' under the hood changes have real world observed benefits and/or, since it's a new install, everything is "fresh."
 

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Not even sure if "they" consider it to be memory leaks or just that Safari keeps in memory every single web page between the time you open and quit the app which is suppose to help pages you visit again load faster - unless you're down to 20MB free memory that is.


Of course, quitting the app doesn't even free up all the stuff it loaded into memory.
Not sure what "they" would call that.
 

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Safari doesn't have separate processes for each webpage (indeed, this was noted as a new feature coming with the version of Safari included with Mavericks). Thus, if it does keep track of the pages you visit, it's done in a really odd way that goes against what other browsers seem to do. I'm not saying you're wrong but if Safari does indeed keep track of the pages, it's doing it wrong.
 

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That's deeper than my knowledge about all this stuff since I am no coder by a stretch of anyone's imagination.

Am only surmising it's gotta be something more than a memory leak - that when a page loads, it's loaded into memory and it stays in memory until you quit Safari or that space is needed by something else.

I can clean boot, open nothing but Safari and in a matter of an hour or two go from 2.4GB down to < 100MB free memory. When I quit Safari, it only frees up about 1.7-1.9 GB of that - using my memory manager to force free, will take me back to that 2.4GB.
 

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Hmmm, you might be on to something. Like you, I can only glean bits of information from what I know about in the internals of Safari. It's very possible that Safari holds on to the memory for a little longer to facilitate quick page loads.
 
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I have to admit this is the first time Safari has gone this high, but sorry Professor, i just can't bring myself to use "a better browser", I'm not sure what it is about it, and the other F word one, i just don't like the look of it. Too much colour for my liking :p
I do use either one when i can't open something in Safari (for some reason i still can't get some Soundcloud songs to play) and thats it for me, or unless I'm fault finding, so you do get some of my grace :bows:
 
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I use Safari all day long (literally, 12 hours a day) and while I don't dispute any claims of memory leaks it has never been an issue for me ... perhaps that's because I actually quit programs when I'm doing using them? In these days of two-second launches (if that), it just seem silly to leave programs open when not in use to me ...
 
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I use Safari all day long (literally, 12 hours a day) and while I don't dispute any claims of memory leaks it has never been an issue for me ... perhaps that's because I actually quit programs when I'm doing using them? In these days of two-second launches (if that), it just seem silly to leave programs open when not in use to me ...

I do. Im forever Command/Tab/Q but i do leave iTunes, Tweetbot and probably Text Edit or Preview open all the time. I don't see how that is going to play with Safari's Memory Leak. Not matter what, it gets up to 4.54gb and its king useless and your lucky to save anything if its open in Safari. It doesn't seem to creep up on you, it BAM and its got ya :-/
 

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I'm not sure what it is about it, and the other F word one, i just don't like the look of it.
You can say the names of the browsers - they're not mystical. :p

Every browser has its problems. I might like Chrome but it certainly has its fair share of pitfalls (why oh why must pinned tabs, at random times, just simply fail to load?). Use what you like and just accommodate what doesn't.

In these days of two-second launches (if that), it just seem silly to leave programs open when not in use to me ...
Quitting an application shouldn't have to be a method of memory management though. ;)
 

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