Sockets Error After Multiple HTTP Calls

Ok, ran some tests over the last few days:

1) I'm using firmware 1v89.
2) With the 15-second interval the interpreter is unresponsive when connected via USB and there are no error messages.
3) I retried with a one-hour interval and the results are the same.
4) Even the number of attempts are the same before it locks up: google.com still makes 8 attempts and locks up, espruino.com makes only 4. Same JS code as above, only changed the interval.
5) I added another interval to blink an LED every couple seconds to see if the results change when connecting to a simple power-only USB vs. a PC's USB: eventually the LED stops blinking, indicating the lock ups are still occurring.

I can certainly solder a cap between Vcc and GND, but I'm seeing a clear correspondence between the website and the number of require("http").get() calls before failure. This leads me to believe it's a problem in the software reading data rather than hardware. But what's different about the website data eludes me (nasa.gov's homepage has much more data than google.com but espruino makes more successful .get() calls before locking up...)

Does websockets use different underlying routines? I remember you saying to try websockets when I made 4 calls a second; can you tell me why?

Thanks,

Neil