Ok I have been running the same machine for about 5 years, P4 1.5GHZ, 512 MB RAM on 1 MBits DSL connection, actually I think it's 3MBits now. I know the PC is getting way old now but hey up until 2005 I could run a ton of stuff on it and it would never slow down. I never had problem browsing the web. Now plenty of sites slow my PC down, worst offenders are MySpace (which fortunately I don't have to visit often) CNBC.com and Quote.com Livecharts, but also sites like CBS marketwatch with all their embedded real time quotes (who needs that anyway? ) and some java applet such as Netdania. On CNBC.com the Windows player freezes everything for 5 seconds when it starts. It's not even that I run out of memory , the CPU usage often goes to 100% before I even run out of memory ressources. My guess is either my PC processing power has decreased for some reason or those sick webdevelopers are ruining the internet (case in point the stupid trend of flash animations on websites, they take 3 to 20seconds to download who has the time for this !) because with a recent machine I am sure I would only get back to the speed that I experienced pre-2005.
Of course I still trade, works fine on WIn 2K. What's the point of Vista if you need 2 times that memory to equal performances ? I don't trade like I used to though. Reliability is no longer the issue it was.
Its Flash adds that are killing you, That and some Java too, Get adblocker that might help a little bit.
I think it's slowing. Too many folks downloading music, video, and movies... overloading and clogging with heavy traffic.
I think it's time for an upgrade. Doesn't Moore's Law say that the CPU power doubles every 18 months or so? Websites are loaded with crap applets and other embedded applications nowadays, so it's obviously going to be loading slower and slower over time if your computer has been the same for the last 5 years.