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Speed Up Safari - Remove Page Loading Delay

scifience.net — This really works! It made a big difference on my machine - apparently Apple put a page loading delay into Safari that makes the browser wait one second before it starts to show a page. It sounds silly but you can really notice it! This cool little app disables the delay and has some other options to boost performance too.

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  • michaelchyles, on 10/12/2007, -12/+10wow..this really did work for me..i mean..the only useful otion (there is a handful of diff options) i used was turning off the delay to open pages. AND IT WORKED! my safari does seem a bit quicker..
    • dDuk, on 10/12/2007, -5/+17The ony thing is, this is a shareware application at $8. It's called 'SafariSpeed', and although it seems like a good program it needs to be said that it's also a paid for one.
    • miyamotofreak, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8The app does allow you to run it 11 times without paying so you can disable page loading and be done with it without paying anything if that's all you want.
    • pwill, on 10/12/2007, -4/+34What?
      Just go here: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20040516220739506
      All you have to do is edit the Safari plist file.
    • Disko, on 10/12/2007, -3/+44Or instead of editing the plist file, just quit safari, open terminal and enter: defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitInitialTimedLayoutDelay 0.25
    • soogy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2All browsers have a feature like this, though Safari's was a bit longer than what is used by others.
    • macbwizard, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I'm wondering if it's more of a placebo effect
    • billyFUN, on 10/12/2007, -0/+30Dave Hyatt says the option has been disabled since Safari 1.3. http://webkit.org/blog/?p=94
    • electrosoccertu, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1First time I used a feature like this was in Opera. I thought it was nice; made browsing the web feel more like browsing for a file on my harddrive.

      Guess the grass is just greener. . .
    • wilhel1812, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1http://img461.imageshack.us/img461/2363/bilde1hf1.png
      look how safari looks with brushed interface disabled. this app can do that as well lol
    • panique, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15In response to @BillyFUN - posted on the webkit blog

      Hi,

      I’m the developer of this utility in question.

      I honestly had no idea that this no longer worked in Safari 2.0. I have updated the product’s website to that effect, making it clear that this doesn’t effect the latest releases of Safari. The first version of SafariSpeed was released years ago when this did apparently actually do something, and the feature has stuck around. Not that it matters, but this hint in its command line form still gets passed around Mac OS X Hints and other forums on a routine basis.

      If anybody who registered feels like they got ripped off because of this, I truly apologize. I had no idea whatsoever about this until just now. Please drop me an e-mail using the form on the website or send it to awarofka AT scifience DOT net along with the e-mail address you used to register and what payment method you used and I’ll give you a full refund. I hope, though, that you will still find the other features (disabling favorite icons, cache, interface change, PDF support, debug menu, which as far as I know still do what they are supposed to - Dave, want to confirm this?) useful.

      Thanks,

      Alex
    • Kelmon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@panique

      Well done that man for a responsible response to the information provided by the WebKit group. You get my Digg for your comment but this article gets to be buried.
  • deviouster, on 10/12/2007, -9/+0Amazing.
  • autoy, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2Yep, page loading delay is absurd to say the least, that shoud be disabled by default. I am used to, as I open my browser, quickly open several tabs and write the adresses fast, so they get loading. Safari would just omit the first letter of each adress due to the delay. I couldn't do it as fast as in firefox till now. The app is shareware but just disable the delay and uninstall, it gets the job done. It just seems to write some values in a plist somewhere.
    • sstidman, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15"Yep, page loading delay is absurd to say the least"

      I'm guessing they probably do it to minimize the likelihood of a CSS flash of unstyled content:

      http://www.bluerobot.com/web/css/fouc.asp/


      For me, I'd rather have quick page loading and risk an occasional CSS flash, but others might disagree.
  • cybersamurai, on 10/12/2007, -34/+4Here's a better solution: install Firefox.
    • DOGPARTY, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9And look at ***** font smoothing? haha yeah right
    • kapowaz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Unfortunately Firefox on the Mac is a less than ideal experience; it's easily my preferred browser on Windows, but on OS X you have several superior alternatives. WebKit arguably is a faster and better-looking rendering engine for most sites (as the above mentioned, the typography is a lot better) and even if you disagree, Firefox does behave in a rather un-Maclike way; hence the emergence of Camino (why else do you think it came about?).

      For raw speed though I still choose Safari; it's easily the fastest browser on my Mac mini, and on that you really do need to take every advantage you can.
    • rspeed, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Camino is much faster than Firefox and (in my experience) just a bit faster than Safari.
    • wilhel1812, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1it's actually a good idea.
      and for the font smoothening, my firefox has good font smothening..
      and after firefox 3, the graphics on mac are better than ever. and if you want it in cocoa, use camino.
      dont understand why i still use safari all the time lol
  • zpamaral, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2[amaral@ZPSurfistaPrateado:~]% defaults read com.apple.Safari WebKitInitialTimedLayoutDelay
    0.25

    Is this report accurate? My Safari has a delay of .25 s not the one-second delay that is mentioned in the entry above.

    ZP
  • NoOneButMe, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Save your money and edit values in ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist directly. A plist editor comes with XCode install, or you can use nano/vi/whatever to edit the plist via terminal.
    • maximthegreat, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6And what would one change in this file that seems full of garbage?
    • Dwarfthemike, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5all of these features except the interface thing (can be accomplised with uno, sort of) can be accesed for free by using Onyx. and Onyx is great for other thing too. check it out =D
      http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/11582
    • maximthegreat, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7Why my request about what would be edited in the plist to eliminate the delay was modded down is a mystery to me. Does anyone know how to do this? The file has a lot of stuff in it, but it's pretty cryptic, although I see my most recent text searches are in there.

      Maxim
    • BaxterG4, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Quit modding maximthegreat down, fools. His question is perfectly legitimate.

      In Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4), Apple switched to a binary format for plists by default rather than the XML format that had been standard before. This is for speed -- it's quicker to read in the binary than to read in and parse the XML. However, the on-disk format is interchangeable as far as everything that deals with .plists is concerned.

      So, what you need to do is convert the file from binary format to XML like so:

      $ plutil -convert xml1 ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist

      then open it up in your text editor of choice and you should be golden. If you want to switch it back to binary, do this (though this is unnecessary):

      $ plutil -convert binary1 ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist

      Of course, the best way to do this would be to avoid editing the plist directly and instead use the defaults system as detailed elsewhere in the comments on this page.
  • Amishplumber, on 10/12/2007, -6/+8Ya, this software saved Safari for me, I was using firefox for a while on my mac, but I found this little hack and started using Safari again simply becuase the pages load so damn fast now. It is definately a noticable difference.
  • iSlayer, on 10/12/2007, -7/+7$8 just to save 1 second of my wasted life...HMMM. Seems WORTH IT!
    • pintomp3, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13not sticking up for the program or anything, but you open one web page during your life?
    • Switch22, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Well think how many times you load different webpages everyday day. Could easily save you 15 minutes a day (900 pageviews).
    • eridius, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8Paying $8 in order to run a 1-line command-line expression that's been documented thoroughly on the web for years now? Sure sounds worth it!
  • ThankTheCheese, on 10/12/2007, -3/+72MB seems a lot for a couple of Safari tweaks.
  • rossbrown, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I think Onyx does this too, under the parameters, for free.
    http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/11582
  • appletalk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Have you ever thought that the delay could be there for a reason?
    • rossbrown, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Since I've enabled the fast loading using Onyx, I've realized that Safari sometimes has a little trouble and freezes for a bit on sites that load dynamic content, like google personalized home page with a calendar widget.
      I'm not sure that it's the cause of that, but it would make sense.
    • Raian, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7The reason is for stylistic concerns, and I think was discussed on David Hyatt's old Surfin' Safari blog-- where he debated the merits of allowing the browser to load things as they arrived, or to render the page in one shot. He believed that the later was the better option-- much cleaner than watching everything load and flicker it's way into existence.
  • P0W3RMAC, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2What's the plist that I edit if I I'm using Webkit.app?
  • ttfadia, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1They call it "stalling": http://webkit.org/blog/?p=66
    • neonfunk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2from the webkit page, about eliminating the stall:

      "This approach ends up being superior in speed to the stalling approach in the case where no style/layout properties are accessed. However it ends up possibly being inferior in speed to the stalling approach if such a property is accessed, depending on how severe the contortions the engine has to perform between the unstyled rendering and the final styled rendering are."
  • MattElmore, on 10/12/2007, -6/+10defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitInitialTimedLayoutDelay 0.25

    does the same thing

    please pay me $8
  • yhorke, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1psst! try oink... saved me $8
  • pairanoyd, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Woa! "defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitInitialTimedLayoutDelay 0.25" Rocks!

    Made a HUGE difference for me! Safari is usable now!

  • rmccabe916, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I've seen forum posts discussing the various options for page loading in Opera (yes I know this post is about Safari). :P

    From what I remember, if you have a fast connection, set the loading delay to zero or one second so that everything immediately shows up on screen. If you have a slow(er) connection, set it longer if you want the page to come up when it is completely done loading. It's all really a matter of what you like to see. (I think you can also change these settings in Firefox as well.)

    Happy browsing everyone. :)
  • bryceman111, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2You may also try Firefox + the Fasterfox extension...not saying it is better. Just an alternative.
  • raccettura, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1The reason for this delay is so that your computer spends less time painting/repainting the page, and more time processing the final version of the page. All browsers have some sort of delay. This is to make the final page load faster.
  • Splitt3rxx, on 10/12/2007, -8/+1or you could just download firefox or opera.
  • nmccreight, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Out of curiosity, is the 0.25 that you would enter into Terminal the minumum cap? (I'm assumimg it's an amount of time) Would it be possible to set it to, say, 0.05?
  • fudgebrown, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1oldie but goodie - thanks for posting this again...
  • zachws, on 10/12/2007, -9/+2They should make a program that automatically loads firefox while you are waiting for safari to load the page. :)
    • mcorto, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11I'm sorry but safari is faster than Firefox.. furthermore safari starts faster
  • mattlamb, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0downloaded disk image, but it fails to open on macbook pro. :-(
  • iragsdale, on 10/12/2007, -0/+33Either you guys are imagining things or you need to update your copy of safari:

    http://webkit.org/blog/?p=94
    • othermaciej, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Indeed, this hidden setting is no longer used by Safari, and it used to be the *maximum* amount of time Safari would wait to paint, not the minimum. Even basic testing will show you that fast-loading pages like http://google.com/ load in under 100ms, not the claimed 1 second.

      The number of people saying this made Safari way faster goes to show you how much your perception of browser performance can be colored by expectations. This is why on the Safari team we use test harnesses and benchmarks to measure speed.
  • svenjick, on 10/12/2007, -0/+25The preference in question is DEAD and does absolutely nothing in Safari 1.3 and Safari 2.0. Read more here: http://webkit.org/blog/?p=94 , as pointed out by "iragsdale".
  • pentak, on 10/12/2007, -8/+0***** Safari - I am a Mac fanboi & Safari is the worst browser I've ever used.
  • arapro, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1but I use Firefox ...
  • TheFlush, on 10/12/2007, -7/+0@mcorto: Safari is NOT faster than firefox.
    Safari takes ages to display a page (even on a fast connection), it's nice that it can output a complete webpage, but I like to already view the page as it's being loaded. Having to stare at a blank page for up to 10 seconds is ridiculous.
    The fact that you need to 'patch' it to make it faster makes it even more absurd, apple should release a browser that simply works (wasn't that their whole strategy??)
    Safari itself is a nice browser, but the fact it loads so damn slow made me switch to Firefox.
    • rspeed, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Hey buddy... I'm sorry than on your planet Safari isn't faster than Firefox, but back here on earth that's the case.

      Oh, and there's no patch necessary since version 1.3 to lower this setting. All those people above who said this made their browsers faster are buffoons because this setting is completely ignored.
    • TheFlush, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0then you tell me why Safari on my iMac at home is loading the pages just as slow as on my G5 at work.......it takes ages to connect to the websites. At the same time FF is displaying the webpages right when I open them. I don't give a ***** what browser I have to use, I just want the fastest one. Firefox loads faster than Safari.
    • Elric1977, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Not sure what crack yer smoking, but My Safari is the fasted Browser I've ever tried on my Mac. When I switched to Mac, I automatically downloaded Firefox and used it for months.... then I accidentally tried Safari... a good 2 sometimes THREE times faster than FF. Maybe you need to update your Safari?
  • kfsutops, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Spam!
  • jonnyq, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0If this "trick" works the same way it works on Firefox it's not a helpful thing. Sure, you remove the delay more the page starts to display, but while the page is loading it's going to have to redraw the page many more times before it's finished, actually slowing down the overall time the page takes to finish. At least, that's the way this trick works in Firefox - assuming it's probably the same in Safari
  • sputza, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Who still uses Safari anyways?
    • Kelmon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Me. I'd consider Firefox if it supported standard Mac functions like Network Locations, Keychain Services and Dictionary, but it doesn't so I won't use it. Camino is the only other browser that I use but even then I keep coming back to Safari and have to say that I'm quite happy with it these days.
    • nandabanaotakun, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Safari has Inquisitor, the best search utility of any browser.

      Oh, yeah. And it's faster than Firefox. *gasp*
  • rossnyc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Ehh - Safari's fast enough as it is...
  • seenxu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2on my old Powerbook G4 867, NO browser faster than Opera!
  • idiotboyCJ, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I use Safari 90% of the time, Camino and Firefox usage splits the remaining 10%. There are a couple of sites I use that won't play nice with Safari, so depending on which one it is, I'll split between Camino and Firefox. I'll usually continue to surf for other stuff after I've done what I had to do. I'll usually go back to Safari because I perceive that it is faster than Camino and/or Firefox.

    The whole argument is somewhat subjective because we're all surfing different sites, at different times of the day, at different peaks and valleys of the website's popularity. Since we're all diggers here, we all know that it can take some time to get to a site that has been dugg...and if the site has been dugged to death, well, there ain't no browser gonna help you now!
  • pawas01, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I used to use safari, but I've started using firefox. this plugin will not help get me back !


    http://www.keenshoes.us/
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