Safari on Mac has become unusable

Some years ago I had switched to Safari because it is a great browser - its lightweight (doesn't eat up GBs of RAM), it integrates deeply into the OS (hello passkeys) and so many more good things - that it was easy to ditch other browsers.

In the last 6 months Safari has started to choke - at random and increasing intervals. By chocking I mean specifically:

Safari does not load ANY website, any at all - I have great fiber connection, I can use TV, Music, or load any website I like with Chrome, and it will load. But in those episodes - usually 20 to 30 minutes - Safari simply refuses to load about anything.

The things I have tried so far to keep my Safari "alive" are:

• disabling Private Relay
• disabling all Browser Extensions
• clearing all cookies & website data via the settings tab

None of the above can help Safari get back on track within those episodes.

I was wondering what other steps could be taken - how could this be debugged or improved?

This is on an M1 Mac with Sequoia 15.06 and Safari 18.6.

If Apple staff is reading this: you do have a great browser - it doesn't need to be fancy, heck it doesn't even need to be the fastest - but it needs to be reliable.

I'd be interested to know whether other people have a similar experience and how this could be fixed.

Cheers!