Safari Runs Slower with Extensions

Safari with extensions: 6428

Long time Firefox users have known for years that their extensions slowed down the browser. However, extensions are relatively new to Safari, so I decided test whether or not the latest version of Safari, 5.1 under Lion, would be slowed down by extensions.

Safari without extensions: 6915

It was, and by quite a bit. The Peacekeeper benchmark showed that even with a few extensions, Safari ran slower. In fact, it scored nearly 500 points less than without extensions. I was using Web Of Trust, Click to Flash, Invisible hand, Stumbleupon, and LastPass. By turning the extensions off (done in the extensions tab of the Safari preferences), I was able to improve the speed of Safari.

Is running your browser without extensions worth a boost in speed? It's a small boost in real world tests, so unless you absolutely need websites to load a few milliseconds faster, no, it's not worth it. Yes, extensions will slow your browser down, even if you're using the latest version of Safari. But it's not by enough that you should notice a large difference in the websites you visit.