is it still safe to use snow leopard?

I know it's lacking some security features like gatekeeper. And it's no longer being updated by Apple. I tried running Yosemite and mavericks on this mid 2007 2.0ghz 4gb ram iMac, and I was not happy with the slowness and lag in the finder for doing basic finder things like creating folders, copying folders, and moving items to the trash. so I went back to snow leopard.

I thought about installing El Capitan to see if they fixed the slow finder issues, but I have a feeling they did not. Should I be worried about running snow leopard? I can't afford a new mac so that is not an option right now.

If you upgrade the memory to 8GB, then Yosemite and El Capitan might work well. If Snow Leopard is working for you, that might be fine for a little time. There will come a time when a software you really need will only work on Mavericks, Yosemite or higher and you will have to decide how to proceed (either with an OS upgrade or a Mac upgrade).

Since you do lack the security fixes update, you might want to make sure that you have a solid backup plan in place to protect your data and also are extra careful with the programs that you install on your machine.

macgig said:

I know it's lacking some security features like gatekeeper. And it's no longer being updated by Apple. I tried running Yosemite and mavericks on this mid 2007 2.0ghz 4gb ram iMac, and I was not happy with the slowness and lag in the finder for doing basic finder things like creating folders, copying folders, and moving items to the trash. so I went back to snow leopard.

I thought about installing El Capitan to see if they fixed the slow finder issues, but I have a feeling they did not. Should I be worried about running snow leopard? I can't afford a new mac so that is not an option right now.

Click to expand...

Hello - looking on EveryMac, you appear to have the computer shown below (or a similar one) - the description indicates that the RAM could be increased to 6 GB and the HD might be replaceable w/ a much faster SSD - now whether those hardware upgrades would allow you to run El Capitan acceptably is a question I cannot answer, but hopefully our experienced 'hardware gurus' will 'chime in' w/ some comments - in the meantime, check the link and drill down to the RAM & HD entries which are linked to Other World Computing - there you can get an idea about the costs of these upgrades.

Concerning your question on the 'safety of using Snow Leopard after Apple has dropped security updates - there is certainly a risk, especially when browsing the internet - a google search will bring up plenty of hits, such as HERE - again, others will likely offer some more advice. Good luck - Dave

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apple says 4gb is the max but everymac says it's 6gb. so I'm unsure which one it really is. I do have good backups in place. I pretty much don't install any new stuff on the mac.... I'm pretty careful on what I download and what websites I use.

You can install 6 GB (4 GB + 2 GB) in that machine, however, the 4 GB module that you need will be expensive and may not be worth the effort. It's up to you. I believe Mac Sales has that module if you're interested. www.macsales.com

macgig said:

apple says 4gb is the max but everymac says it's 6gb. so I'm unsure which one it really is. I do have good backups in place. I pretty much don't install any new stuff on the mac.... I'm pretty careful on what I download and what websites I use.

Click to expand...

Concerning the RAM question, a call to OWC likely would resolve the issue and your SSD options, if interested, could also be discussed. As to security w/ your older OS X, internet browsing would seem to be the most important consideration - you can add browser extensions (I use AdBlock & Ghostery in Safari but others are available) and occasionally scan w/ Malwarebytes (i.e. anti-malware for the Mac) - the link I gave previously discuss some additional precautions. Dave

If you have the iMac with model identifier 7.1 OWC MacSales says the maximum memory that machine can take is 6GB and they are usually right. The 4 GB maximum that Apple lists is based on the capacity of chips that were available when the machine was built. Over time higher capacity chips often become available increasing the machines maximum memory if the newer chips are used. Apple generally doesn't update their max memory stats (presumably because they haven't tested configurations using the newer chips).

If OWC says the max is 6GB they're probably right. They were when they suggested my 2008 MacBook Pro could go to 8 GB. Apple's suggested limit was 4 GB IIRC.

This page will tell you how to find the model identifier number for your machine to make sure that this information is correct.

Edit: Beaten to the punch by two people. I have got to type faster.