Last week we all had an engaging discussion about what happened to my Safari?. Lots of issues were raised, and some good advice shared. The tip that has helped me the most was clearing the “other forms” in my Autofill preferences. Safari ran much better after doing so.
Then yesterday Apple released Safari 2.0.1. I’ve downloaded the new version from Software Update and have been using it to browse my favorite sites. I’m also writing this post in 2.0.1.
I’ve noticed performance improvement. My Gmail account is definitely snappier, and overall surfing seems faster. I know it’s always hard to tell at first because “we want it to be better.” But after a day of work, I think it really is improved.
I couldn’t find any major issues on the Apple Discussion Boards, so it looks like it’s time to turn it over to you for your comments. How’s Safari 2.0.2 (or the upgraded Panther version) working for you?
Some improvement, some things still b0rked
I have a two or three test cases on local servers that I can use to gauge the speed and reliability of Safari.
#1 - An order page that is all tables, and has around 500 rows. Previously this page killed Safari or at least took several minutes to load.
Verdict: Safari 2.0.1 loads this page lickety-split. Big improvement.
#2 - A router page in Cacti (www.cacti.net) for our DSL termination router - this page is JavaScript and loads about 1000 rows of interface information. Previously this page killed Safari.
Verdict: Safari still dies with the spinning beach ball of death. No change.
#3 - Multiple SSL pages open at once randomly crashed Safari.
Verdict: This is a difficult test, because I could never get it to happen every time. So it's unclear whether this one is fixed or not.
My fourth test is to run Safari as my primary browser for a couple of days, and see what kind of memory usage it's taking. Previous versions of Safari would balloon up to 400+ MB of used memory with just my average daily browser use. I'll have to put it to the test again and see what happens.
Roger
RE: Some improvement, some things still b0rked
Cool (and very demanding) tests. Thanks for passing these along...
Some improvement, some things still b0rked
"An order page that is all tables, and has around 500 rows."
If tables are the poison, I ought to try some of my early websites from the late nineties.
Some of those babies would kill a bull elephant...
Safari 2.01 adds support for HTMLArea, kinda.
I was astonished when I saw a co-worker of mine on one of our back end web pages, and the embedded HTMLArea 3 WYSIWYG was working. However, we discovered an odd bug. If HTMLArea is in WYSIWYG mode when you submit the form, Safari bungs up the POST data. Switching to code view before submitting works great. I'm very surprised I haven't heard anyone else mention this new Safari feature!