As someone who's been using an old laptop for many years, I can tell you it becomes more and more challenging. With just 2 CPU cores, even Firefox (with it's threads showing as "Isolate+" in top) can easily consume both cores. I can only imagine it gets much slower a few years in the future. Websites become more demanding.
as someone else with a few old lappies can anyone recommend any 32 bit distros?
edit: x86 Pentium M is one of them
I often used Slax for old laptops with very good results. It is a bit heavier than puppylinux but you have a distro that is also more visually appealing than puppylinux.
You can have a look and see if it's right for you