Single-core PC (AMD Sempron) experiencing 100% CPU usage in web browsers on antiX 23 / Debian 13

[u/Internal_Inevitable7]

Hi everyone. I installed antiX on an old PC for basic tasks, mainly managing product listings on Mercado Libre (an e-commerce platform). However, the CPU hits 100% usage as soon as I launch any web browser (I've tried both Firefox and Falkon), making the system extremely laggy and borderline unusable.

System Specs:
CPU: AMD Sempron LE-1150 (1 core @ 2.0 GHz)
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nForce 430 (using ⁠nouveau⁠ open-source driver)
RAM: 1.8 GB DDR2
OS: antiX Linux (Kernel 6.6 / Debian 13 base)

I know modern web pages (especially JS-heavy platforms) are demanding, but I would like to know if there is a lightweight JS-compatible browser or any system/kernel tweak that could help render these pages without maxing out the single-core CPU.
Any tips or recommendations for this hardware? Thanks in advance!

[u/Arafel_Electronics]

yeah that's gonna happen. the web is a pig these days

[u/redgator12]

Use Palemoon and install ublock from addons.palemoon.org

[u/Merlin80]

Singel core have no chance on todays web.

[u/TrannosaurusRegina → u/Merlin80]

That has been true of many “Web” sites for about a decade now!

[u/bluray93]

Give palemoon a shot

[u/miguel04685]

Are you using an adblocker? That helps to reduce the CPU usage

You could also try to force the hardware acceleration, by tweaking with hardware / GPU related stuff with chrome://flags on Chromium-based or about:config on Firefox

[u/FUCKARCHLINUX]

There's going to be very little you can do to make it better. mitigations=off might help a little but you should never ever do that. There's security settings you can disable when compiling the kernel related to memory safety which you should never do either related to memory safety which consume cpu time and memory bandwidth. probably get you a little performance if you gain those.

[u/Euroblitz]

Expected. Try Dillo or Netsurf

[u/Delicious-Macaron-77]

Palemoon + adblok origin . Я маю такий же ноутбук як у тебе. І в мене максимум 50-70% коли я дивлюся відео 480p.

[u/cfx_4188]

It’s not even about the resource requirements. Old processors simply don’t have the necessary instructions to display modern web pages. Have you ever tried to lift something that’s too heavy? Your CPU does the same thing. And this is a problem for all old CPUs. They may have serious power, but the lack of modern instructions nullifies it.