very interesting, sometime during the past two updates something in the default browser must've fixed itself. it used to be when I clicked the media upload button in the status update sections of sites like ello and twitter, it would be unresponsive--not letting me access my files to upload via Web... the only browser that worked (as I mentioned in my post above was chrome) my other browsers I tried (cm and dolphin and a couple others) same thing... couldn't upload via web...
well by accident today (as the metropcs SM-G386T1 won't let you 'Turn Off' the default browser) I opened the default browser, and now I'm able to upload my pics to my social media sites like I could only seem to do with chrome... on my two previous phones I actually preferred the stock (metropcs masks it as MetroWEB) so I'm going to us this as the default for a while (I especially like the Reader button, not sure if chrome has this but if it does, i never noticed it)
If I come across the tab crashing issue, I'll let you know