I'm looking for any tips for how to cope with dial-up internet speeds

(Connection has been bad for a while but took a dive on Friday, was gone completely this afternoon, is at a snails pace this evening.)
Firefox doesnt even seem to have a stop-page-loading buttons any more...
1) I remember someone here talking here (I think not too long ago) about a text based browser i.e. it just showed text - any ideas there?
2) or something that stopped images from loading -- but allowed you to choose to load an image -- that would probably be ideal.
FWIW, Gmail in the browser often works with the basic html interface, even when no other sites load properly.
TIA
