optimzing a T42p for today's browsing demands

[ginahoy]

My wife has a T42p that she uses exclusively for browsing. It's running 32-bit XP with Firefox 52. Lately the browser tends to get bogged down unless she frequently closes and reloads to clear the memory. I've seen memory usage climb above 1GB (!!) with certain websites when multiple browser tabs are open. Until I can buy a new laptop later this year, I'm considering installing Linux Mint Xfce to improve browsing performance. I have questions:

Will a lightweight OS such as Linux Xfce perform better than XP on such an old machine?

Is there a lighter-weight browser that would do a better job of managing memory when browsing 'heavy' sites? I already use NoScript to block unnecessary scripts.

I have a Pentium M 765 CPU I plan to install. Adding more RAM would also help, but it already has 2GB. Is that the max?

Thx

[kfzhu1229]

2gb is the max for this machine.
and you do NOT have to rage when the RAM usage goes above 1gb! I use Windows 10 x86 on my t43p with 2gb of RAM and it always goes over 1gb but i see zero slowdowns that i feel like can be solved with extra ram. Even in windows its when you use over 1.5/2gb that you may start to see slowdowns. Now lower your expectations and everything will be fine.
For most of us folks here Windows XP is the preferred choice for T4x. Folks who would want every single bit out of this computer goes for Windows 2k or Linux. Then there is the other end of the spectrum where I am who pushes the computer to Windows 7 (I push my T43p to even Windows 10!)
I suggest you to get some time, get a blank hard drive, sit in front of the T42p and try all appropriate distributions of Linux, W2k, xp and 7 (or 9x and NT 4.0 too if that's your thing) and see which one you like the most, since everyone has a different opinion here and what we say may not fit you the best.
good luck