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I am using Safari (6.1.6) for all my web use but certain sites I use often are telling me my browser is out of date. I gather Safari cannot be upgraded to a more modern status.

Having read the often less than complimentary reviews of 'El Capitan' which I assume would be the next logical step, I wonder if I can keep my OS X version but use another more up to date browser.

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  • Try FireFox, i think the latest version still works on 10.7.5. – Tom Gewecke Jan 30 '16 at 13:05
  • Why not just update to El Capitan? It runs great on my 2009 MacBook Pro and includes many security updates. – RedEagle2000 Jan 30 '16 at 16:39
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    What "less than complimentary reviews" have you read that you feel are applicable to your particular situation? – Allan May 5 '16 at 20:15
  • @RedEagle2000 Older Apple hardware will not run anything newer than 10.7.5. Updating the OS is not an option. – Rich Jul 1 '17 at 18:54
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    @RedEagle2000 - Cool, but people finding this answer in a Google search are increasingly likely to have older hardware (sample size of one, me). Btw, I don't have the reputation to post an answer, but I recently found Waterfox which is still fully supported on 10.7.5. (waterfoxproject.org) – Rich Jul 11 '17 at 1:12
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You can currently use Chrome, the world's most popular browser, but not for long. Google are dropping support for OS X versions before 10.9 from April of this year. A Chrome version you download now will keep working, of course, but it won't get updates.

However, it's unsafe to use the Internet from OS X 10.7.5, regardless of which browser you use. It's not received any security updates for years, so it's full of unpatched known vulnerabilities.

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  • given security information which I was not aware of what do you think the best move to update my system and then use Google Chrome? – V.T. Jan 30 '16 at 12:45
  • You should really upgrade to 10.11, although 10.10 would do. Then you can either use Chrome or Safari, since you'll have an up-to-date version of Safari. Macs are not suitable computers for people who want to keep the same OS version for years, since each OS X release only stays in support for about three years after it is released. – Mike Scott Jan 30 '16 at 14:25
  • @MikeScott Cannot update to newer version, should I put my working mac in the bin? – Soufiane Ghzal Aug 22 '17 at 0:29
  • @SoufianeGhzal You should consider it, yes. You certainly shouldn't use it for online banking or anything else where security is critical. – Mike Scott Aug 22 '17 at 6:10
  • :( Ok, next machine will be a cheap still performant random linux one – Soufiane Ghzal Aug 22 '17 at 11:43
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I find the website Cross Browser Testing really useful. It give a matrix of operating systems and browsers and you can see which ones are supported.

For example you can click on 10.7 under the Mac OS X heading and then choose Safari in the browsers section and see that Safari 6 is the only version supported.

However, if you select just 10.7 you can see that there is a lot more versions available for Google Chrome, Firefox and Opera.

As the other answers suggest, I would be very careful running outdated software as they do have known security vulnerabilities. Have a look at the CVE Database for current known vulnerabilities for your software.

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The Opera web browser is still up-to-date. It's what I'm using as my MacBook can't run anything newer than OS 10.7.5.

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  • No longer true. The Opera installer requires 10.9 or later. – Rich Jul 1 '17 at 18:50
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You have to accept that 10.7 is an extremely outdated operating system, and very few browsers will support it. El Capitan had some bugs when it launched, but those have mostly been ironed out.

Having said that, according to the Firefox page they still support 10.7.5 (and 10.6 even).

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Lion browser support

As of this writing, no major browsers support Lion. Chrome supported Lion until April of 2016 while Firefox supported it until August 2016. The default Safari browser hasn't been updated since 2014. Opera is built on Chrome's Chromium webkit engine so Opera support was also cut around the same time as Chrome.

Though there are "security risks" with using Lion to browse the net, I haven't had any problems. The main concern is when websites no longer support these older browsers. However, there are a few years before that will happen. Generally, software support for Lion is becoming scarce and an alternative solution will soon be necessary.

Alternative solutions

Aside from trying to install a newer version of OS X on an unsupported Mac (don't try it; it doesn't work very well), the best solution is to install an alternative operating system. Linux operating systems support the latest versions of Firefox and Chrome. Another alternative is installing Windows. Officially, the maximum Windows OS supported on MacBooks is Windows 7 x86 but I've been able to run Windows 10 x64 with a couple glitches. Two finger scrolling doesn't work and the function keys don't have the normal functions in OS X. The display brightness also can't be changed. If you don't want to pirate Windows, a digital license key can be purchased on eBay for under $10. I also highly recommend spending $10 and upgrading to 4GB of RAM to avoid using SWAP memory.

Why were many of the A1181 MacBooks dropped at Lion?

Many of the A1181 MacBooks were stuck with Lion. It's a shame Apple didn't bother rewriting x64 drivers for the graphic processors in those models as the graphic card is the only factor keeping these models from the newer operating systems. I'm a third-hand owner of MacBook 4,1 (early 2008).

A note to Apple

Please stop releasing operating systems every year and indirectly forcing users to upgrade to a new computer every few years. The new features I'll never use don't compensate for the premature loss of software support.

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  • The newest Mac that isn’t supported by High Sierra is a 2009 model, and so is more than eight years old. And High Sierra will keep getting security updates for a couple more years, so a Mac will be more than ten years old when it can no longer run a supported version of MacOS. – Mike Scott Mar 6 '18 at 2:35
  • @MikeScott Yes, but the early 2008 MacBook only had 4 years of updates (2008-2012). In comparison, Windows XP was supported for 14 years. 10.7.5 was released 2012. – www139 Mar 6 '18 at 4:09
  • Six years of updates, not four. Lion kept getting security updates until late 2014. Still, I take your point that it’s not long enough, if you’ll take mine that Apple are doing better with Mac lifetimes these days. – Mike Scott Mar 6 '18 at 6:50
  • @MikeScott Agreed. Maybe my response was harsh. I consider 6 years of major OS updates the minimum followed by 2-3 years of bug fixes and auxiliary updates. I'm a junior in high school without much money which might affect my opinion. Most anyone else would have probably replaced this MacBook by now. I still find the Core 2 Duo processors quite useable. My stumbling block is software support. The early/mid 2009 MacBooks run El Capitan perfectly fine and I don't see how the specifications of an early 2009 MacBook are significantly better than an early 2008 model to justify the 4-5 year gap. – www139 Mar 8 '18 at 17:53

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