[tunap]

Those old machines run fine enough after initial browser loading once you install ghostery, ublock or noscript.

As for the engadget link, why not link straight the source:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/pixel-pc-mac/

[seanp2k2]

Even better to have other hardware doing the ad plucking instead of making it run tons of rules against each site. Something like pfsense has plugins to do this, or run all the network traffic through privoxy on your home network, and it'll also block tons of in-app ads on all the mobile devices using wifi downstream of that.

[agumonkey]

one can also try dillo.. albeit it's gonna be less pleasant aesthetically, it's as light as it can be.