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Northform · Jan 18, 2003, 07:46 AM

I have found that the speed of Safari is more dependent on the speed of the computer than the RAM the computer has. I have a Blue G3/300 w/320MB RAM and an iMac 500 w/128 RAM and Safari is noticably faster on the iMac while Moz and Chimera offer similar experiences on both machines.

Also, Safari and Chimera run about the same on the G3, but Safari handily beats Chimera on the iMac.

I know that it's probably due to the size of Safari in comparison, but it is interesting. Maybe more bloatless apps will follow.

Peter · Jan 18, 2003, 09:42 AM

I have a 700Mhz with 128Mb ram on 56K dialup, and Safari loads websites (escp. Macnn Forums) within 3 seconds per page, Chimera took around 5 seconds, IE & Omniweb about 7-8seconds and iCab forever

OreoCookie · Jan 18, 2003, 09:57 AM

One thing about Safari that's often neglected -- it hasn't crashed once on me yet. Chimera on the other hand ... well it wasn't usable at all till 0.6, but even that crashes (especially if you heavily use tabs).

I have had about 100 windows opened (successively, not at once) with Safari -- no problem, smooth as silk.

Even if it should be a bit slower than Chimera, it is crash prone (on my system) and that makes up for being second speedwise on some systems (not on mine though).

ryju · Jan 18, 2003, 12:01 PM

I've had Safari crash on me, but I forget what I was doing. I'm pretty sure I deserved it though.

OreoCookie · Jan 18, 2003, 12:35 PM

Up to 190 windows and counting. Been downloading a lot of (open source) software for an e-mail server project. No crash so far ...

Macanoid · Jan 18, 2003, 12:43 PM

Chimera is only version 0.6, while Safari is version 0.8, so that might explain stability issues. Though I have to say Chimera hasn't crashed in eons.

Speedwise Safari can't touch Chimera on my 8mbit line, not to mention it lacks tabbed browsing.

Also, Chimera is way more standard compliant at the moment.

Good start for a browser though, and I think that once safari gets tabs, I'll see myself swicthing to it.

Peter · Jan 18, 2003, 01:03 PM

well I like Safari, its fast and looks much better, but Chimera has tabs but is slower. What makes everyone think Apple will be implementing tabs?

JB72 · Jan 18, 2003, 01:06 PM

I wonder if Safari's speed is in part due to the way it uses /tmp, considering the fact that it actually deleted /tmp in it's first release.

Northform · Jan 18, 2003, 02:28 PM

Originally posted by Macanoid:
Chimera is only version 0.6, while Safari is version 0.8, so that might explain stability issues. Though I have to say Chimera hasn't crashed in eons.

Speedwise Safari can't touch Chimera on my 8mbit line, not to mention it lacks tabbed browsing.

Also, Chimera is way more standard compliant at the moment.

Good start for a browser though, and I think that once safari gets tabs, I'll see myself swicthing to it.

Version numbering is not something that is standard. A version number is whatever the developer thinks its application deserves.

tikki · Jan 18, 2003, 08:00 PM

Safari is about the same speed as Chimera with the tunneling turned on. At least that is what it seems like on iBook500 and iMacG4800.

mishap · Jan 18, 2003, 09:43 PM

I just went back to Chimera after using Safari for a week.. i have to say i think Chimera is a lot faster and i missed my tabs so much. Now, my desktop is much cleaner.

Gul Banana · Jan 18, 2003, 09:44 PM

Strangely, Safari is about the same speed for me on a G4 400 and a G3 800; the 800 has more RAM but the G4 has a better video card..
*shrugs*
Mind you, it's not THAT strange, since the other browsers are also about the same speed on each.

Catfish_Man · Jan 18, 2003, 11:37 PM

It seems to be somewhat random. Some people say it's way slower than Chimera, other say it's way faster. For me it was way faster, and now it isn't (???). Some pages it loads quickly, other it hangs on for a while. It's really wierd.

frock83 · Jan 19, 2003, 02:30 AM

It crashed on my computer several times

TC · Jan 19, 2003, 04:31 AM

I've only ever seen it crash once, came after waking my laptop and running out of space for the swap file.
Compared to Chimera and Explorer it is rock solid.

DNA man · Jan 19, 2003, 04:41 AM

Safari is the fastest browser I have used in OSX but when I boot back into OS9 IE5 is still significantly f a s t e r than Safari. I only hope that Safari will get faster.

Northform · Jan 19, 2003, 08:44 AM

Safari's backlog seems to be in loading data from the network while Chimera's backlog seems to be in compiling the data for display.

Either way, I believe that the compact code of KHTML will allow faster development and faster speed enhancements than Moz's.

Has anyone tried building Chimera with the 1.3 trunk code? It might go a long way in making Chimera faster. Currently, Chimera uses the somewhat dated 1.0.1 code.

OAW · Jan 19, 2003, 11:15 AM

Originally posted by OreoCookie:
One thing about Safari that's often neglected -- it hasn't crashed once on me yet. Chimera on the other hand ... well it wasn't usable at all till 0.6, but even that crashes (especially if you heavily use tabs).

I have had about 100 windows opened (successively, not at once) with Safari -- no problem, smooth as silk.

Even if it should be a bit slower than Chimera, it is crash prone (on my system) and that makes up for being second speedwise on some systems (not on mine though).

OreoCookie,

I agree with you wholeheartedly! I even started a thread about it a few days after Safari was released. For me, Safari hasn't crashed even once since it has been released ... and I use it as my primary browser. Even though Chimera is still beta, the bottom line is that Safari is a much more stable beta product.

OAW