wrote:
It seems javascripts are what is slowing down/locking up my browser.
I get the gray box Script is broke continue debug or exit (or words to
that effect). FF says most of this stuff is no longer supported.
Is there a work around?

They mention "about:support" here.

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis

The "about:config" allows tuning a browser and its
feature set. I can't be sure exactly what's in 52 ESR.
Probably Electrolysis. Maybe there are Developer Tools.
Maybe there is 60FPS compositing going on (which is a
bitch if there's no hardware acceleration to back
it up - that makes more effort for the CPU if no
hardware acceleration is available). I don't think
compositing and that style of rendering model can be
switched off.

They "design for a smartphone", and if your computer
doesn't happen to have the same hardware acceleration
characteristics as that, your browser won't be "buttery smooth".
It's just the way the world works, that the developers
lose sight of the objective of making something that
"works for most people".

Sure .js sucks the life out of the web, but there's
other stuff in there too.

One of the developer tools shows a waterfall curve,
and measures performance (after a fashion). I doubt
an end-user will learn anything of value from the
exercise - but it's an example of what "junk" is
hiding in your browser.

I've yet to get the browser to display any information
on how many cycles .js is using. Or what .js file or
routine might be doing it (such as a standard jquery
file perhaps).

There might be an "about:memory".

And the browser is likely to have a CEIP-like telemetry
system, which amongst other things, reports memory usage
to the mothership. This is how they spot problems with
the latest browser release. Without people having to
write to the support page and complain about it. By
doing their own CEIP, they don't have to use a Microsoft
method, and then log into a Microsoft server to
get their aggregate statistics. So the Mozilla model
is probably how other developers should have been doing
it in the first place. There may be an opt-out for
that, some place in the browser.

Have a careful look through the browser, and make
sure you're not missing any of the "bloat". I don't
have 52, which is why I'm "short on details" :-)
My browser fleet and methods won't last forever,
and the OS will have to be kicked to the curb sooner
or later. Things can't stay like this forever.

*******

Summary:

1) Knowing the hardware (video card make and model, CPU
make and model, available RAM), might give some idea
how "worthy" a platform is being used. Even a P4 with
Hyperthreading, helps. A P4 without Hyperthreading,
doesn't seem to fare as well. All it takes is a single
mis-behaving thread of execution, to crush a single-threaded
P4.

2) Provide a sample URL of an egregiously slow site.
So we can bask in the warmth of looping .js with you.

3) Do you have Flash installed ? Do you have FlashBlock ?
Is Flash set to Always Activate ? I don't know whether
the HTML5 video support in 52 ESR is sufficient for the
modern web or not. A site like Youtube probably prefers
HTML5 today, with Flash as a backup. You can visit this
site with your 52 ESR and check what's missing in the
HTML5 suite.

http://www.youtube.com/html5

Paul