slow browser

[zpelleti]

hi,
my system: mac osx 10.4.11
safari: 3.1.2
i'm using safari and firefox, in both cases the time for loading pages is around 2 minutes ( unless i have more than one page opened, which makes it even longer) and for media, it can take 30 minutes for a two minutes file.
i've looked at other forums and emptied the cache, and deleted other useless stuff, and i see no change.
however, i've tried the fsck thing , but never got to the " file system was modified" message.
maybe i'm doing something wrong..
i've had this sytem for just over a year and love it. it just started being slow recently.
by the way, one of my friends suggested i start using camino, any views on that?


hope you can help.

[nixgeek]

You mentioned that your system runs 10.4.11, but you didn't mention what kind of Mac you have (you mentioned that you had it over a year, but that still doesn't tell us how new the system is). Consider that if it's an older Mac (G3 processor or an early G4 system), you can only get so much speed out of the system even if you max out the RAM to its full capacity. A lot of the "Web 2.0" stuff on the Internet can slow down an older Mac somewhat, so it's important to know which Mac you actually have so we can determine if it's just that your system is slow or if it's something else.

[JeremyBuff]

Hi Zpelleti,

My name is Jeremy. Recently, I had the same problem on a Mac of my own. For Firefox, try starting in safe mode by opening Terminal and typing the following without the quotes: "/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox -safe-mode". This should start Firefox in safe mode. Once in safe mode, select the options to revert all system settings, etc back to the original defaults. Keep your bookmarks. This should work for you. Sometimes, the pipelining setting (or any of the others for that matter) in Firefox gets messed up. This should fix your FF problem.

As for Safari, and if the above does not fix Firefox, I suggest the following:

1) Back up any and all bookmarks, etc that you have on your browser.
2) Using one of your browsers, download the latest versions of Firefox and Safari. Keep them on your desktop for later use.
3) Completely delete Safari and Firefox with an application deletion software, such as AppCleaner (available free of charge at http://www.freemacsoft.net/AppCleaner/).
4) Search in Spotlight for any pref. files for Firefox and Safari. If any are left, delete them.
4) Reboot the Mac. If you wish, try the fsck tool again.
5) Once your desktop has loaded, install both Firefox and Safari freshly.
6) Load your bookmark backups.

I hope this works for you. Sometimes it's just a fluke with one of the extensions, but still that does not explain why bother your browsers are slow. What internet do you have? Is it wireless? If so, which router are you using? If you can access your router control panel, is the router automatically obtaining DNS settings, or did you pre-program them? A bad/slow DNS server could be at fault for this. If you use an IM client, such as iChat or Adium, is it slow to connect as well? Or does it connect instantly?


Best of luck,

Jeremy
Volunteer Tech