Really the only browser I can use on this old netbook now is Midori. I can surf OK with GNOME Web but it won't let me post to this forum.

From Millions of people spied on by malicious browser extensions in Chrome and Edge by Pieter Arntz:   See the referenced article for additional information, including the list of extensions and what to do.

I thought "hard freeze" in Debian meant "no NEW packages; fix existing bugs".  So while you may not get an updated LXQT from say....2.0 to 2.2, you should absolutely get an updated from 2.0 to 2.0.1 (but still referred to as 2.0).  Maybe I'm wrong, but that's what I understood it to be.   So getting a big update during "hard freeze" indicates to me that Trixie-Testing is MUCH closer to release as Trixie-Stable.

There will still be a lot of updates until Trixie is released as Stable (soon™  ). I had over 400 yesterday.

True enough. I have both GNOME and LXQt desktops installed.