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Re: Removing Cookies
joemikeb #50308 10/23/18 12:26 AM
Joined: Sep 2009
Likes: 3
OP Offline

Joined: Sep 2009
Likes: 3
Originally Posted By: joemikeb
Originally Posted By: plantsower
I just used the free version but even though it said it freed up my ram, I didn't notice a difference on my old mac. Under storage it says that both of my 2 gig storages of RAM are in use. So even though I hardly use any of my other memory, my RAM is almost filled up for some reason. I wonder if that's why it's so slow and has the beachball.

Just saying your RAM is almost filled up means very little in MacOS any more because of the way memory is used. In older versions of OS X when the system got short of RAM it would immediately dump data to swap files on the hard drive which materially impacted performance. In MacOS much of what used to go into swap files on the HD is now compressed and remains in RAM which takes almost no time to decompress and use when needed so it MacOS tries to keep the RAM filled as much as possible to make the system run faster and more efficiently.

[color:#CC33CC]Good to know.[/color]

Open Activity Monitor (it is in the /Applications/Utilities folder) and click on the Memory tab at the top of the window. Then look at the bottom of the window where you will see a box labelled Memory Pressure and in that box is an interactive graph of "Memory Pressure" if the bar is Green then no matter how much of your RAM is being used the system is operating at peak efficiency, but if it is Red and/or nearly fills the box then you are short of memory and the only relief for your slow speed is more RAM or fewer open applications. Another indication on that same screen is how much Swap is used. If that is a large number that is not good.

My memory pressure is green so hurray!

If you want to see what Task is using your memory, click on the Memory column and that will sort the running tasks by the amount of memory they are using. Safari 12, like almost any browser, is a big memory user but for example at this moment on my system it is using less than ½ GB of RAM with one window open, so it is pretty efficient in memory usage.

Alright.

There are two apps that can tell you a LOT about your system and identify potential problems. Etrecheck that will scan for lots of problems that can effect system performance. It is a free download and will provide lots of usable information (it keeps getting more informative) but some of the really detailed analysis and automatic scanning requires a paid subscription. The latest version offers explanations that do not require a PhD in computer Science to interpret but if you have trouble with interpretation, someone here can surely help you. MalwareBytes also has a free download and 30 day trial to rid your system of malware that may also negatively impact your systems performance.


I already use Malwarebytes and it has saved my bacon twice. I ran Etrecheck yesterday but didn't know how to get the results to FTM in one piece.


MacBook Pro - M2, Ventura 13.6
Safari Tech Prev 17.0
Safari 16.6
Firefox 116.0.2
iPhone 7 Version 15.8




Re: Removing Cookies
joemikeb #50309 10/23/18 12:32 AM
Joined: Sep 2009
Likes: 3
OP Offline

Joined: Sep 2009
Likes: 3
I deleted Macpaw and CleanMyMac yesterday with EasyFind but Macpaw is still using 152mb of RAM somehow.


Originally Posted By: joemikeb
Originally Posted By: plantsower
I just used the free version but even though it said it freed up my ram, I didn't notice a difference on my old mac. Under storage it says that both of my 2 gig storages of RAM are in use. So even though I hardly use any of my other memory, my RAM is almost filled up for some reason. I wonder if that's why it's so slow and has the beachball.

Just saying your RAM is almost filled up means very little in MacOS any more because of the way memory is used. In older versions of OS X when the system got short of RAM it would immediately dump data to swap files on the hard drive which materially impacted performance. In MacOS much of what used to go into swap files on the HD is now compressed and remains in RAM which takes almost no time to decompress and use when needed so it MacOS tries to keep the RAM filled as much as possible to make the system run faster and more efficiently.

Open Activity Monitor (it is in the /Applications/Utilities folder) and click on the Memory tab at the top of the window. Then look at the bottom of the window where you will see a box labelled Memory Pressure and in that box is an interactive graph of "Memory Pressure" if the bar is Green then no matter how much of your RAM is being used the system is operating at peak efficiency, but if it is Red and/or nearly fills the box then you are short of memory and the only relief for your slow speed is more RAM or fewer open applications. Another indication on that same screen is how much Swap is used. If that is a large number that is not good.

If you want to see what Task is using your memory, click on the Memory column and that will sort the running tasks by the amount of memory they are using. Safari 12, like almost any browser, is a big memory user but for example at this moment on my system it is using less than ½ GB of RAM with one window open, so it is pretty efficient in memory usage.

There are two apps that can tell you a LOT about your system and identify potential problems. Etrecheck that will scan for lots of problems that can effect system performance. It is a free download and will provide lots of usable information (it keeps getting more informative) but some of the really detailed analysis and automatic scanning requires a paid subscription. The latest version offers explanations that do not require a PhD in computer Science to interpret but if you have trouble with interpretation, someone here can surely help you. MalwareBytes also has a free download and 30 day trial to rid your system of malware that may also negatively impact your systems performance.


MacBook Pro - M2, Ventura 13.6
Safari Tech Prev 17.0
Safari 16.6
Firefox 116.0.2
iPhone 7 Version 15.8




Re: Removing Cookies
plantsower #50310 10/23/18 12:35 AM
Joined: Sep 2009
Likes: 3
OP Offline

Joined: Sep 2009
Likes: 3
Originally Posted By: plantsower
I deleted Macpaw and CleanMyMac yesterday with EasyFind but Macpaw is still using 152mb of RAM somehow.

Update: Nevermind. I had 3 windows up from yesterday from MacPaw. Duh!


Originally Posted By: joemikeb
Originally Posted By: plantsower
I just used the free version but even though it said it freed up my ram, I didn't notice a difference on my old mac. Under storage it says that both of my 2 gig storages of RAM are in use. So even though I hardly use any of my other memory, my RAM is almost filled up for some reason. I wonder if that's why it's so slow and has the beachball.

Just saying your RAM is almost filled up means very little in MacOS any more because of the way memory is used. In older versions of OS X when the system got short of RAM it would immediately dump data to swap files on the hard drive which materially impacted performance. In MacOS much of what used to go into swap files on the HD is now compressed and remains in RAM which takes almost no time to decompress and use when needed so it MacOS tries to keep the RAM filled as much as possible to make the system run faster and more efficiently.

Open Activity Monitor (it is in the /Applications/Utilities folder) and click on the Memory tab at the top of the window. Then look at the bottom of the window where you will see a box labelled Memory Pressure and in that box is an interactive graph of "Memory Pressure" if the bar is Green then no matter how much of your RAM is being used the system is operating at peak efficiency, but if it is Red and/or nearly fills the box then you are short of memory and the only relief for your slow speed is more RAM or fewer open applications. Another indication on that same screen is how much Swap is used. If that is a large number that is not good.

If you want to see what Task is using your memory, click on the Memory column and that will sort the running tasks by the amount of memory they are using. Safari 12, like almost any browser, is a big memory user but for example at this moment on my system it is using less than ½ GB of RAM with one window open, so it is pretty efficient in memory usage.

There are two apps that can tell you a LOT about your system and identify potential problems. Etrecheck that will scan for lots of problems that can effect system performance. It is a free download and will provide lots of usable information (it keeps getting more informative) but some of the really detailed analysis and automatic scanning requires a paid subscription. The latest version offers explanations that do not require a PhD in computer Science to interpret but if you have trouble with interpretation, someone here can surely help you. MalwareBytes also has a free download and 30 day trial to rid your system of malware that may also negatively impact your systems performance.


MacBook Pro - M2, Ventura 13.6
Safari Tech Prev 17.0
Safari 16.6
Firefox 116.0.2
iPhone 7 Version 15.8




Re: Removing Cookies
plantsower #50312 10/23/18 10:37 AM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 15
Online

Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 15
Great post by joemike!

I'll kinda contradict him on one point, though, which is that although Safari 12 uses a bunch of RAM, I"m finding it that it uses significantly less than Safari 11 used...not that it's particularly faster. frown (My green Memory Pressure line is thinner in Mojave than it was in High Sierra, at least in part because of Safari 12.)

Originally Posted By: plantsower
I did take down lots of log in items but it still says I'm using almost all my RAM. I have 4 gigs in the old MBP and 8 gigs in the new one of which I am using over 6 gigs of ram at the moment!

You're confusing RAM with your HDD/SSD, Rita. Logs, caches, temporary files, all that sort of stuff is on your drive and doesn't use RAM; if you want to see what's using your RAM, open Activity Monitor and click on the Memory column.

Originally Posted By: plantsower
Diagnostic Results from Activity Monitor

These look like temporary files. I would like to delete them if it's safe.

Deleting them will have absolutely NO effect on RAM usage. (And barring some sort of glitch, macOS purges temporary files on its own.)

There are, literally, thousands of files on your Mac with names that sound useless and eminently deletable, but they've all got some sort of purpose, and even if your HDD/SSD is filling up, deleting them is NOT the way to go about freeing up space.

If you need to clear RAM, quit apps that aren't being used and close windows in Safari; if you need to clear drive space, post back for suggestions.

Originally Posted By: plantsower
Is there another cleanup app that is free that does a good job? I use OnyX but it never really helped my old MBP. I want to be able to clean out all the trash that I can't tell is trash so that it will run smoothly and not use so much RAM.

Same as before, that "trash" does NOT use RAM, nor does it particularly slow your Mac down unless it somehow gets out of hand.

I haven't used a cleanup app in years, and I'm none the worse for it; I don't even know if they're particularly relevant any more. Among other things, they clear caches which, technically, shouldn't be cleared unless you think one is corrupted, and logs, which, again, barring some sort of glitch, are rotated out by macOS. I'm not sure what more they do, but as I said, no need to know has ever arisen.

Originally Posted By: plantsower
Do you like 12? What will I lose from 11 that might tick me off?

I've got no problems with it other than its loading annoyingly slowly, about the same as 11 loaded, but I don't know what might tick you off.

Originally Posted By: plantsower
I keep changing my cookie prefs but Safari seems to work best if I accept all cookies from sites I visit.

In Safari 12, you want to keep "Prevent cross-site tracking" checked; I suspect it will eliminate some, if not many, of your undesirable cookies. ("Prevent cross-site tracking", incidentally, is one if the biggest improvements in Safari 12.)

You weren't clear about which pref you've got set in Safari 11, but it may be the reason you've got so many "unknown" cookies.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Removing Cookies
joemikeb #50413 11/06/18 09:02 AM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 15
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Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 15
Originally Posted By: joemikeb
You know my opinion so let me pose a scenario for your consideration. A miscreant gets your password and goes browsing your various accounts to glean information — any information. Somewhere along the line they discover your bank, your credit card number, your social security number, your address, your telephone. A month or so later you receive a mortgage bill for the $500,000 house you just purchased in the Bahamas. You swear you did not buy it but it takes a court action and $10,000 in legal fees to get you out of the mess and the culprit gets a free luxury vacation in "your" house in the Bahamas.

On a smaller scale you get a bill from Acme Credit Card for $15,000 in charges made on a brand new credit card that was opened in your name. Or you go to book a room at your time-share only to find "you" have already used up all your credits for the year for a vacation someone else took.

Any security expert will tell you it is not a single big reveal that gets you it is the sum of dozens of tiny bits of information from a hundred sources that lead to the final big reveal. No matter how careful you are you leave crumbs of information about yourself when you cruise the web and using the same password everywhere simply makes the thief's job that much easier.

Do you lock your doors when you leave home? When you park your car, do you take the keys and put your belongings out of site or do you leave the doors unlocked and the keys in the ignition? I'm guessing that you DO lock your doors when you leave home and you DON'T leave the car doors unlocked with the keys in the ignition. Those are pretty standard security precautions. Just like using secure passwords and not reusing passwords on the internet. It is annoying to keep up with but there are a number of excellent tools to make the task tolerable, it only takes a little self discipline to use them.

Profuse apologies for taking so long to respond; giving your post my thoughtful attention and consideration kinda got out of hand.

You'll be closer to my real financial exposure if you take 3 zeros from your numbers, but that only minimizes my risk; it doesn't negate it.

But a miscreant browsing my accounts, on the other hand, won't put me at risk, because NONE of the accounts for which I use my master password has ANY personal info other than my name, address, and phone number...PERIOD! Any account that's got any info that would leave me at risk if revealed is well protected. Also, I use close to 20 different email addresses and names as my login IDs, so a miscreant would need more than just my password. (Aside: I recently noticed that PayPal displays only the last two digits of my SSN as opposed to the traditional four.)

Leaving my front door open or my car unlocked with the key in the ignition would, indeed, put me at risk, and I"d never do either, but neither is analogous to what I'm doing, which is closer to leaving my shades up or my garage door open; yeah, you can see in, but that's where it ends.

Your caveats are certainly on the mark if you leave bits and pieces of yourself all over the internet, but I don't.

On the other hand, I can't begin to guess what info would be discovered were I to be targeted, but that's so ridiculously unlikely that I can't be bothered to worry about it.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Removing Cookies
artie505 #50427 11/06/18 03:48 PM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 16
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Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 16
Originally Posted By: Artie505
On the other hand, I can't begin to guess what info would be discovered were I to be targeted, but that's so ridiculously unlikely that I can't be bothered to worry about it.

Good luck!


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Removing Cookies
joemikeb #50434 11/06/18 10:58 PM
Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 15
Online

Joined: Aug 2009
Likes: 15
Originally Posted By: joemikeb
Originally Posted By: Artie505
On the other hand, I can't begin to guess what info would be discovered were I to be targeted, but that's so ridiculously unlikely that I can't be bothered to worry about it.

Good luck!

That was a bit obscure...

By "targeted" I meant some miscreant picking me out and doing a deep search and coming up with "bits and pieces" from before we had protective instincts and tools...from even before we were aware of how necessary they are.

I suppose I could study up and learn how to find those "bits and pieces" myself, but I very much doubt that there's anything I could do about them...other than worry fruitlessly.

And in that respect, many FTMers, perhaps even you, could use the same good luck.

As I said, I don't see someone's picking me out as a target being the least bit likely, but others may have cause to worry.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
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