Sluggish Safari? Mac fans hustle for answers

Is Apple's Safari browser a resource hog?

That's the question posed at Macenstein, which ran tests comparing the Apple browser to the popular Firefox software.

The article's author tested his Mac by conducting a series of tasks using both browsers. He claims that the computer performed the tasks significantly slower when Safari was open, compared to when Firefox was open.

The news quickly spread among the Mac faithful, who are trying to replicate the results and figure out what is going on.

Blog community response:

"At the end of the day, no one is really sure why Apple's browser is making so many waves in the performance pool, but a healthy comment thread on the post is already hard at work. For anyone serious about Safari, here's hoping Apple is already aware of the issue and has brought their browser in line for Leopard."
--The Unofficial Apple Weblog

"Interesting analysis, wonder if there is a conspiracy theory, or this is something to do with the HTML / Javascript rendering system being deeply embedded in the operating system. It'd be interesting to see a similar study of IE vs Firefox on Windows, and sites with heaving javascript / flash vs static HTML."
--Ufies.org

"1) Browsers rarely get served the same content, even on very popular sites. Without spoofing it's hard to know if Safari is being served some buggy content from one of the pages in question. (2) A small sample set isn't enough to draw general conclusions. Try a bunch of other different Web sites and see if a slowdown still occurs. If so, then maybe there is a systemic problem. Until then, though, all we know is that something is hogging CPU in one of five Web pages. (3) Reduce reduce reduce! Reduce the problem if possible. Cut it down to one page. Don't go back/forward (just go right to the pages instead of clicking through to them)."
--Surfin' Safari