RHV,
Let me personally apologize for your issue's treatment here. I too am using Safari by preference over Firefox and like you I am using Mavericks (now 10.9.2) and Safari's latest iteration. I too have noticed occasional slow downs or stalls when browsing, but rather than ascribe them to Safari specifically, I took them to be caused by the particular network I was using. I didn't take the time to research your issue further for several reasons….among them that most of the stalls I had seen were cleared by simply reloading the page, AND I personally hadn't been inconvenienced to the same level that you experienced with your financial institution's site….and for whatever reason, you hadn't made it clear that this was as widespread as you now have clearly let us know with your latest post.
The discussion on cache clearing and all of the side topics regarding the various releases of Safari are relevant, however, and should remain in this thread so that others can learn from that info. While not everyone else may be on the same version of Safari as you, they might also be experiencing similar symptoms and, for them, clearing caches could help.
I will be traveling like you for the next week or so and will explore the other forum's discussions to see what, if any, other suggestions for resolution have been raised.
Please bear with us a while longer…..
