

As noted in an earlier article explaining why I've avoided Lion, this is the first time since Mac OS X debuted in 2001 that I've hesitated to upgrade.
#Ifreemem review upgrade
Questions? Comments? Post them below or email us!īe sure to check us out on Twitter and the CNET Mac forums.Now that I've effectively passed Lion by, I'm thinking again about whether or not to upgrade from Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6). However, Chrome is still a beta release so I would not recommend you rely on it, especially for private and important work. Firefox and Camino are a couple of popular options, but Google's Chrome is based of the same "Webkit" engine as Safari and therefore will also provide a similar browsing experience. Safari is great, but if for some reason it is not working as expected you can at least temporarily use another browser. If you have an older system that has 1GB of RAM or less, I recommend you put at least 2GB in the system but alternatively go for as much RAM as you can afford, especially if you are running OS X 10.5 Leopard. While Safari may use a lot of RAM, unless something is wrong it should not take up gigabytes of RAM, so for general Web browsing and office work you might consider adding another gigabyte or two of RAM to compensate for Safari's uses. RAM is fairly cheap and you can easily double the amount in your system. Doing this forces applications to relinquish unused memory that they have reserved.
#Ifreemem review free
Utilities such as iFreemem can help free RAM from the system and other applications by putting a temporary heavy demand for RAM on the system. Keep in mind that doing this may reset automatic log-ins and other site-specific behavior. The reset options can also be used to clear more than just the cache, which is another possibility you can try. This can be done directly from the "Safari" menu, or alternatively from the "Reset Safari" options in the same menu. In addition to quitting and relaunching Safari, clearing the program's cache may help prevent heavy RAM usage.
#Ifreemem review windows
If you keep a number of browser windows and tabs open for your work, you can easily get them running again by selecting "Reopen All Windows from Last Session" in the "History" menu, making the relaunch process far easier. Doing this will keep the program active in memory and will not force it to relinquish any RAM. This is especially true if you tend to sleep your computer with Safari running instead of quitting the program by logging out or restarting. Standard plug-ins you should expect to have for Safari include:Īn easy workaround to any program using a lot of RAM is to quit and relaunch the program. Other applications may have their own "Plug-ins" folders from which you can remove plugins. Most will be located in /Macintosh HD/Library/Internet Plug-ins/, but some might be in the /username/Library/Internet Plug-ins/ folder. If you have installed a number of plug-ins, you might consider removing them. Web plug-ins can be the root of a memory leak, or large memory usage. Memory leaks would require a fix from Apple, but regardless of the specifics, there are a few ways to address RAM problems with Safari (or similar applications such as Mail, which uses the same engine to render HTML). However, since Safari's RAM usage seems to plateau (albeit at high levels) and not keep growing even when you repeatedly perform the same tasks, it suggests Safari is just reserving that amount of RAM and not necessarily suffering from a memory leak. Generally if you keep performing the same task that has a memory leak, the amount of RAM used will grow until the system runs out and gives you errors. If this happens, the next time the program runs that same routine, a new chunk of RAM will be allocated, causing the program to use more and more system memory. Some have claimed this behavior is a "memory leak," which is caused by a program reserving RAM for some use and then either not releasing or keeping track of the memory space being used. Safari can sometimes use a large amount of RAM. It may fluctuate a bit, but tends to sit at this level even when windows are closed. Upon first launch, Safari seems to use an expected 150MB to 200MB of RAM, but that amount may grow in size as you browse, until it reaches between 400MB and 600MB. Depending on your system, having the browser or any application use large amounts of memory may impede on the performance of other applications. I regularly see it using between 400MB to 600MB of real memory, which in day-to-day activities should not matter much for people however, in some instances people have seen it use well more than a gigabyte of RAM. Safari is a great Web browser, but despite its benefits it can be quite a memory hog.
