Start with this tweet from Austin Evans:

Look, I want to like and use Safari but the fact that it routinely reloads my tabs WHILE I’M ACTIVELY USING THEM drives me insane

I’ve got plenty of memory leave me alone 🤬 pic.twitter.com/bSBsTFo0Xo

— Austin Evans (@austinnotduncan) March 11, 2021

This happens to me a lot, on Intel and M1 Macs. And to be fair, this is Safari looking out for me, stopping a page from spinning into infinity, potentially wreaking memory havoc.

Can’t help but wonder if Safari might offer a preference here to limit that behavior, at least on the frontmost tab, a switch that says, if I’m using the tab, and there’s still enough memory left to keep running, let me know the problem, perhaps with a “reload” button in the interface, but in a non-modal way, so I can keep that page humming if I so choose.

Also, I’d wager the culprit here is more often than not the page creator or a plugin (think advertising), not a flaw in Safari.