(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button promising to be careful. (2) In the search box above the list, type or paste async and pause while the list is filtered (3) Double-click the dom.ipc.plugins.asyncdrawing.enabled preference to switch the value from true to false

This might not take effect until the next time you exit Firefox and start it up again.

One of the headline changes in Firefox 48-49 is e10s, which separates the browser interface process from the page content process. The performance impact of this can vary a lot between systems, so it would be helpful to know whether you have this feature turned on. To check that, either:

• "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > Troubleshooting Information
• (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
• type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter

In the first table on the page, check the row for Multiprocess Windows and see whether the number on the left side of the fraction is greater than zero. If so, you are using e10s.

If you are using e10s:

To help evaluate whether that feature is causing this problem, you could turn it off as follows:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button promising to be careful.

(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste autos and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click the browser.tabs.remote.autostart.2 preference to switch the value from true to false

Note: the exact name of the preference may vary, but it will start with browser.tabs.remote.autostart

At your next Firefox startup, it should run in the traditional way. Any difference?