I wonder if that works beneficial on old computers that freeze up when you try load the GB js ad-auction circus news circus website. I want to browse loaded pages while the new tabs load. If the client just hangs for 2 min it gets boring fast.
Datapoint: During the pandemic, I had to use an old 2004 Powerbook G4 12" (256 MB RAM, OS X Leopard). Everything sort of worked and was even reasonably snappy. But open one website, and the machine went down. Unusable. Even if, indeed, I just wanted to read or look up a few kB of text. So painful.
One tool I've found useful in low-power/low-bandwidth situations is the Lynx web browser [1]. Used to be installed by default in most Linux distributions but I think that's probably not the case anymore. Wikipedia says its also available on OSX and Windows.
It’s the speed of the JavaScript compiler, on those old browsers they were expected to handle a few kilobytes max of event listeners. The chrome vs Firefox browser wars sped up JavaScript compilation by 10x at least
