Jquery autocomplete on large array-Collection of common programming errors

Are you using the standard jQuery autocomplete plugin? If so, I’m unfamiliar with the option parameter “source” that you used.

The proper syntax for that plugin is: autocomplete( url or data, [options] ). It sounds like your version works with the ‘source’ option parameter,(although while crashing the browser) so I’m confused. If the browser is crashing, I’d expect the problem to be related to the javascript.

I recommend trying:

$('whatever').autocomplete(array1,{
    matchContains: true, 
    minLength: 3, 
    delay: 700,  
    max: 10, 
    highlight: true 
});