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J have an older imac with 10.6.8, I'm told Chrome will no longer supprt that version and I need to upgrade my browser. I've tried to download a new version of Chrome or Firefox neither of which work with this OS. What do I need to do to get upgraded?

Any help would be greatly appreciated,

Peter
 
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It will help if you tell us which Mac you have. In "About this Mac" (in the Apple-icon menu) it will say something like mine does - Late 2012 Mac Mini 2.5 GHz i5.
 

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J have an older imac with 10.6.8, I'm told Chrome will no longer supprt that version and I need to upgrade my browser.


I guess I have to ask the question here — is your Chrome version not working with all the sites you want to visit or do with it??

IMHO, just because the developers say they are no longer going to support that version has never been a reason for me to upgrade, especially if the application is still working for everything I need to do with it.

And as great as the site that Ian provided is, I dare say that it's a bit dated having being published in 2015 and a lot of things have changed. Just saying...

But as gsahli asked, if you supply your Mac model specs, you may have other options such as upgrading your operating system if it will handle it. If that is possible it would give you more options.



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krs


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From the list that Ian posted, I used to use Camino for the longest time and I liked it, but then Camino didn't keep updating their browser for the newer versions of macOS and I was forced to change.
iCab is another browser that offers a SL compatible version, it's not mentioned in the list.

Firefox and Chrome, if you can find those old versions, seem to be the most capable, just not the most efficient or the quickest.
 
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J have an older imac with 10.6.8, I'm told Chrome will no longer supprt that version and I need to upgrade my browser. I've tried to download a new version of Chrome or Firefox neither of which work with this OS. What do I need to do to get upgraded?

I still have an old iMac in my office running OS X 10.6.8 so that I can still use some legacy software. So I've run up against this problem.

Safari in OS X 10.6 is tied to that version of OS X. It can't be upgraded without upgrading the entire OS. Unfortunately Safari in Snow Leopard has become severely dated and it is now unstable and incompatible with some Web sites.

Also unfortunately, many modern third party Web browsers aren't compatible with OS X 10.6.

The perfect solution would be to find an older version of a modern third party browser that isn't so new that it doesn't support OS X 10.6, but which is new enough that it supports all or most modern Web technologies.

Fortunately, Firefox has an archive of all past versions for download!

This version of Firefox is a close to ideal compromise. It is fairly modern, it supports HTML 5, and it is completely stable under OS X 10.6:

Firefox (48.0.2) (free)
Directory Listing: /pub/firefox/releases/48.0.2/

You can set Firefox to be your default Web browser within Firefox:

Firefox menu --> Preferences --> General --> Always Check That Firefox Is Your Default Browser
 

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I think I would have to second Randy B Singer's suggestion for the early version of Firefox, it will open almost anything and it was quite stable even then.
You should however bear in mind that you are using an unsupported OS meaning no current security updates leaving you unprotected from security breaches of many types dependant on your use. For example I would not be conducting internet banking via a web browser on Snow Leopard. I wouldn't even risk it on macOS 10.14 without a VPN.
This raises another question which occurred to me some time ago. Are there any VPN services compatible with OSX 10.6.8 ?
 

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Just to answer my own question here, I did a little searching and found there are indeed a few VPN apps for Snow Leopard.
It is advised that the OSX 10.6.8 v.1.1 update be applied first but this article mentions a few possibilities.
Lastly given that some current VPN apps can be hard to uninstall I would suggest a full system backup before trying any of these rather old versions.
Having said all that a VPN would certainly go a long way towards improving online security for unsupported versions of MacOSX.
Vpn For Mac 10.6 8 - download

Download free VPN Unlimited for macOS


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I've tried to download a new version of Chrome or Firefox neither of which work with this OS.

A bit OT, but this brings up another point that I find really annoying, and that is there are so many developers and their sites that can't even be bothered to list the minimum OS System Requirements, even for fairly recent applications, and one has to waste their time downloading it to see if it will even possibly run.

There should be a law mandating such specs be included, and another one insisting that every web page should be dated according to its published date, but that's another topic and another PITA with some internet stuff.

At leat some cataloging sites list the OS requirements like Download the best Mac apps : MacUpdate but it's not complete enough, even if the site is only used to check.

OK, early morning rant finished... :Smirk:



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A bit OT, but this brings up another point that I find really annoying, and that is there are so many developers and their sites that can't even be bothered to list the minimum OS System Requirements, even for fairly recent applications, and one has to waste their time downloading it to see if it will even possibly run.

It is a requirement for Apps that are listed in the Mac App Store and the iTunes App Store. I know you stated developer's sites.

An interesting thread over in MacRumors recently discussed a problem with the developers of Disk Warrior and their requirements plus the fact they do not offer a refund. And that the latest version of DW does not yet support APFS. The point was made that for a utility that costs $119.95, the developers could do a whole lot better.

The argument was made that Apple was late in releasing the inner workings of APFS. The counter argument was.... well, then how come the developer of CCC was ready with a new version as soon as APFS was announced?

There are good developers and then there are the other ones... :evil
 

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I'm disappointed to hear that about DW. I used to keep a copy around in the days when Disk Utility was not very good at fixing errors. I didn't have to use it often but when I did it was very helpful. Haven't had it on my drive in a few years because I wasn't using it enough to justify the upgrade cost.

Let's assume that Apple was indeed late to release the necessar details for APFS support, in my mind that doesn''t absolve the developers of DW from blame. I could live with having to wait a few weeks for a relable utility but I think it's reasonable to expect them to warn me about that before I part with some hard earned cash.
 
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The argument was made that Apple was late in releasing the inner workings of APFS. The counter argument was.... well, then how come the developer of CCC was ready with a new version as soon as APFS was announced?


Interesting. And I stand to be corrected, but my understanding was the developers of each application, both of DW and CCC were each Apple engineers or Apple developers at one point and before they went on their own. And if such is correct, I would think they would both have some contacts left available to keep them in the Inside Apple OS knowledge loop.

DW used to be almost mandatory in a Mac tech's toolbox IMHO and my copy certainly did its fair share of repair and recovery over the years, but I haven't needed to do any update, but neither will I likely be exposed to any need to, especially without getting near any APFS formatting stuff.



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I think I would have to second Randy B Singer's suggestion for the early version of Firefox

Why recommend a 3 year old browser when there are other newer browsers available? Pale Moon 27 supported 10.6 until october of 2018. Arctic Fox (a fork of PM27) continues where PM27 left off, and Tenfourfox also has 2 intel ports. All of them are more current than Firefox from 2016.
 

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@Patrick If I were the developer of either program (CCC or DW) I don't think I would count on any remaining contacts at Apple for inside informamtion. It's a pretty good bet that Apple has anyone with that level of knowledge on a non disclosure agreement, Given that Apple has been rather agressive about enforcing such agreements in the past, I doubt someone would risk their jobs/careers.

Apple's not perfect but every time I hear that they hasn't given a developer the right information early enough I take it with a grain of salt. In the System 7 days we purchased a program to run on our LC II. It seemed like every time we tried a cut and past the program crashed. The tech support person I talked to told me that Apple had changed the clipboard format without much advance notice. An update was released later (after more than a year IIRC). If the reviews were to be believed, the bug was still present. Lets just say I did not buy the upgrade.
 

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Why recommend a 3 year old browser when there are other newer browsers available? Pale Moon 27 supported 10.6 until october of 2018. Arctic Fox (a fork of PM27) continues where PM27 left off, and Tenfourfox also has 2 intel ports. All of them are more current than Firefox from 2016.

Considering your posted article on MacRumors Forums about Arctic Fox and its limitations re extensions, ability to play video content (via Quicktime plugin) problems with Javascript heavy sites etc it strikes me as an app for enthusiasts who like to "tweak" things. As for TenFourFox it is, as mentioned in a reply on the same post extremely slow. Lastly Pale Moon 27 is only for Windows and Linux I think. Please correct me if I'm wrong.


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@Patrick If I were the developer of either program (CCC or DW) I don't think I would count on any remaining contacts at Apple for inside informamtion. It's a pretty good bet that Apple has anyone with that level of knowledge on a non disclosure agreement, Given that Apple has been rather agressive about enforcing such agreements in the past, I doubt someone would risk their jobs/careers.


Sly, I would agree and say you are spot on and didn't think of that side of things.

As for DiskWarrior, and as a very long time user, I am quite disappointed about what I read about it but I haven't been anywhere near APFS or even Mojave to really need any update, whether one exists or not.

OT: I do know DiskWarrior, nor any other utility or methods for that matter, was able to repair the "Invalid Node Structure" that has existed on my Mavericks partition volume, probably since the day it was created or Mavericks was installed. Not even using several Nuke and Pave attempts.
It doesn't seem to bother anything so I occasionally fix it with DiskUtility that does a temporary fix and deletes the list of invisible, zero k nodes from the "Lost & Found" folder that can appear after running DiskUtility.


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I think you misunderstood a few things.

First. Pale Moon has had Mac builds for 3-4 years now. However they should be considered beta, much like firefox nightly builds. We are working towards "official branding". Only a few small kinks left to work out that don't impact usability or browsing experience however. The latest PM28 dropped 10.6 support, but still supports 10.7+. Pale Moon for Mac OSX - Pale Moon forum

Second. Arctic Fox can easily play youtube natively, handle most all heavy JS sites, and use many extensions. The only reason that's mentioned on github/macrumors is because we also have powerpc linux builds. Many people are using old G3/G4 machines that just don't have the horsepower to handle such things. Using a mobile UA to lighten the load, and using a native video player to handle streaming video is less cpu intensive than html5 on old hardware.

Third. Pale Moon & Arctic Fox are not firefox rebrands, but forked and diverged enough to not be 100% FF compatible as their code moves further and further away from mozilla/chrome code. So not every FF add-on will work. Most will, some need minor modifications, and some just wont work at all. However most popular ones are supported, or are forked.

Fourth. As for TenFourFox, yes on an old PowerPC G3/G4 it is slow. Toss it on an Intel machine and it's a whole new browser.

Hope that helps clear up the confusion one might have. Here's a third party video i found on youtube talking about Arctic Fox.
YouTube

Cheers
 

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Okay, thanks wicknix for the clarification, I have recommended TenFourFox in the past as a viable alternative to outdated versions of Safari. You will notice that the OP does not identify which device he is using, just an older iMac so.......
 
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...DW used to be almost mandatory in a Mac tech's toolbox IMHO and my copy certainly did its fair share of repair and recovery over the years, but I haven't needed to do any update, but neither will I likely be exposed to any need to...

We had an interesting discussion on TidBITs Talk a while back, with the subject "Looking For Disk Warrior Justification." Maybe it is available in the list's archive.

The upshot of it was that back in the days of the Classic Mac OS, Apple's included Disk First Aid wasn't particularly effective, and that disk problems came up often enough that Disk Warrior (or similar, but DW was the most popular), was both a godsend and almost a necessity.

Parenthetically, I remember that on most large Macintosh discussion lists, back years ago, about once or twice a month there used to be a message from some user whose hard drive had apparently "died" and that DW almost miraculously resurrected it. That was impressive, but I haven't seen a post like that on a Mac discussion list in years now.

Nowadays the Mac OS is quite a bit more stable and reliable, Disk Utility/First Aid usually works well when needed, and a utility such as Disk Warrior is rarely necessary for your average user. On top of that, Disk Warrior is now $125. For $125 these days, instead of purchasing Disk Warrior, assuming that you have a back up of your data (and you should) you can instead just purchase a nice replacement hard drive, which in my mind is a much better value, because once a disk fails so badly that Disk Warrior is necessary to repair it, can you ever really trust it again?
 

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