Web browsing frustrating on the Mac

This is a continuing problem. It has been going on for more than a year. It happens at least three times a day, but sometimes more often.

After a time of browsing, sometimes minutes, sometimes hours, the browser will stop loading images and style sheets, and links become unclickable. HTML continues to load, but usually not full pages. Sometimes it starts as one image on a page not loading, or just links not clicking, but other times the first sign will be all images and the style sheet on a page not loading. You also can not visit a new web site by typing a location into the address bar. The browser becomes unresponsive. Menu items are no longer clickable. The only way to quit the browser is to force quit. Thankfully, in Firefox, I can restore the previous session and get back to work.

I have now been through two computers, two routers, and three cable modems while living in three different locations in the last year. I write this just to offer evidence that the problem can not be linked to either a specific computer or router.

I use a PC at work and have never had this problem. Firefox does crash from time to time, but not daily, and pages never just stop loading. I love my Mac, but the internet experience is extremely frustrating. This browser problem has occurred in the middle of the order process at Amazon.com and other very bad and frustrating times.

Is anyone else seeing a similar problem? I have nothing special installed on my computer like hacks or plugins. I'm running pretty basic with just the software I use for work like Aperture, Photoshop, and Textmate.

 

I haven't tried Camino on my MBP yet. I tried it when I first started having the problem with Firefox on the G5, and Camino had the exact same problem. I found a thread on MacNN last year with people having the same problem in Safari, so I never tried using it for a long term, since I don't like Safari anyway. I replaced the G5 in December with a MBP and the problem with Firefox continued. I'm going to try Camino again and see how it runs. I did keep my profile folder when I moved to the new system, so maybe the profile folder is corrupted.

Edit: I also realized searching here that there are many threads of people having the same or a similar problem to what I'm having with Firefox.