8 ms·

Apple retires Snow Leopard from support, leaves 1 in 5 Macs vulnerable

42 points by esemiss 13y ago

Watabou 13y ago
> Apple on Tuesday made it clear that it will no longer patch OS X 10.6, aka Snow Leopard, when it again declined to offer a security update for the four-and-a-half-year-old operating system. Well, The SSL bug only affected Mavericks. Additionally, I don't think we know if the security updates released for mountain lion and lion also affected Snow Leopard. And if it did, well, Apple moves quicker than Microsoft does anyway with new OS release every year. If there are still people running Snow Leopard, either they have an old computer that is more than 5 years old, or they specifically don't want to upgrade to Lion. For the former, Apple knows most people will have upgraded their old computers by now, or will soon in the future. For the latter group, most know what they're doing by not upgrading. Snow Leopard is 4 years old. And the last update for it was September 2013, just 5 months ago. It clearly was Apple's XP, if you will, and the longest supported out of all releases, I think.
- interstitial 13y ago
  My $2700 Cintiq is 7 years old and works dandy, but Wacom will not be making Maverick drivers -- ever. So I won't be upgrading ever. My TV is 10 years old and working. We have a 15 year old TV in the office. My 2001 ibook is going strong and my six year could use it -- but it can't even be updated to the new wireless networking protocols, and linux abandoned the G3.
  - jader201 13y ago
    I can't tell if you're complaining about Apple abandoning support for Snow Leopard, or just making a statement supporting why people still stick to old(er) hardware. If the latter, then I completely understand, and you make a valid point. If the former, though, then my question would be why would one be content with sticking to old(er) hardware, but not be content with sticking to old(er) software? Again, not saying you fall into that boat, but in general, anybody protesting this decision should be asked that question. And it's a genuine question -- maybe there is a valid reason. I just can't think of one.
    - teacup50 13y ago
      > If the former, though, then my question would be why would one be content with sticking to old(er) hardware, but not be content with sticking to old(er) software? Security, and network effects. Supporting deployment back to 10.6 / iOS 6 / etc isn't inherently difficult, but the fast pace of Apple's deployment, the lack of support for downgrading on iOS devices, and the now-constant API churn makes it seem like more hassle than it's worth. Apple is intentionally driving new demand by pushing early obsolescence of old software and hardware.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - atgm 13y ago
    > Wacom will not be making Maverick drivers -- ever For the Cintiq, or in general? Are they necessary? I ask because I have an Intuos Pro and haven't had a problem on Mavericks.
    - interstitial 13y ago
      It's Wacom. They announced it on their site. I could try it, but at this point I'm not up for the trials and tribulation of trying mavericks and having to revert.
cclogg 13y ago
While I don't have any macs still running Snow Leopard, it has a special place in my heart because it can still install Warcraft 3 as well as play many older Mac games pre-Intel.
cubicle67 13y ago
Snow Leopard is the most recent version of OSX able to run on 32 bit Intel machines, like the one I have here. Sure, it's 8 years old but it's still running well and I'm in no hurry to throw it out.
wiredfool 13y ago
The thing about Snow Leopard is that it's the terminal release for 32bit intel machines. Like the one I'm typing on right now, the first white intel macbook. (Though, I recently switched it to Ubuntu 13.10 after a hard drive crash. It might go back. ) For a lot of things, It's still good enough. Chrome works. Mail works. ITunes. And for my purposes, terminal and ssh too. Similarly, I've still got an old PPC mini running Leopard (also it's terminal release) as an iTunes server. It's no speed daemon, but it's not like serving a couple mp3 streams is that hard. But it hasn't gotten updates in a while, so I've got to look at moving on with that one.
akama 13y ago
It does seem strange that Apple, which does a great job regarding fragmentation on the mobile platform, has such difficulties with the issue on desktop platforms.
- IBM 13y ago
  That will be less of an issue going forward with free OS updates. Then it will just be people who don't want to upgrade for whatever reason that stay behind.
Encosia 13y ago
To put that in perspective, Windows 7 and Snow Leopard were released to manufacturing at about the same time, and that ~4 years is roughly 25% of the time that Microsoft supported Windows XP. I'm biased, but that kind of organization-wide upgrade treadmill would be a nonstarter with most of my clients (ranging from small-business to enterprise). Strange move by Apple if they hope to challenge Microsoft's lion share of PCs in business.
- chrisbolt 13y ago
  To put your comment into perspective, Vista came out almost 6 years after XP and was a disaster. The next usable (and far more widely adopted) release, Windows 7, came out 8 years after XP. Apple, on the other hand, has a far more rapid release cycle which tends to not break things as much. It's a strange move by Microsoft for them to make huge changes every 5 years, rather than small ones every year or two like Apple. It's much easier to adapt to change incrementally.
  - Encosia 13y ago
    If Apple's strategy is so sound and Microsoft's is so flawed, why did all of OS X combined never even manage to crack 50% of Vista's peak user base, according to global web stats[0] over that period? Frankly, I have a hard time believing anyone technically minded really believes Vista was a disaster. Windows 7 was essentially Vista SP3, but people finally had decent hardware by that time and it seemed to be an improvement. [0]: http://gs.statcounter.com/#desktop-os-ww-monthly-200807-201402 http://gs.statcounter.com/#desktop-os-ww-monthly-200807-2014...
doomlaser 13y ago
Snow Leopard was the high watermark release for OS X, before focus and engineering talent migrated to iOS, and successive releases of OS X began to become cluttered with throwaway useless user interface candy and naggy GateKeeper dialogs.
- chrisbolt 13y ago
  Naggy GateKeeper dialogs? It's extremely rare that I see them, and even then it's nothing like UAC was back in the Vista days.
  - teacup50 13y ago
    If you manually extract something and create a broken signature in the process, Gatekeeper helps you out by refusing to open the bundle in ANY application, and instead simply stating that the file is corrupt and should be deleted. I've hit these things often enough that I just turned it off. Gatekeeper doesn't protect against unsigned code execution; it's merely the same old quarantine code with code signing bolted on. It prevents you from stupidly double clicking an evil executable -- in theory.
- eropple 13y ago
  YMMV, but a lot of that "useless user interface candy" makes my day noticeably better. Launchpad is silly, but Mission Control pretty much changed how I used a computer. I'd been using Macs since 10.4, but I didn't get Macs until Lion. And 10.9 made multi-monitor much much better by making Mission Control desktops per-monitor. This is the best OS X release by far. As far as Gatekeeper dialogs go, I'm curious what you're doing with your machine because I have seen a Gatekeeper complaint exactly once, because Cisco hadn't signed their VPN software (which was really awesome of them).
  - teacup50 13y ago
    > Launchpad is silly, but Mission Control pretty much changed how I used a computer. I'd been using Macs since 10.4, but I didn't get Macs until Lion. And 10.9 made multi-monitor much much better by making Mission Control desktops per-monitor YMMV, but Mission Control completely broke the way Spaces worked as compared to prior Mac OS X releases -- which also happens to be the way I've worked since the 90s. I don't need full screen apps, or separate spaces per head, so from my perspective, that change was an enormous net loss. There are work-arounds, but they're imperfect: http://totalspaces.binaryage.com/ http://totalspaces.binaryage.com/ Factor in silly stuff like notification center, and all Apple seems to have done UX-wise for me is make it harder to actually get work done.
wiradikusuma 13y ago
I attempted to upgrade my old MacBook White (Core 2 Duo) to Mavericks, but apparently it only supports Snow Leopard.
- liviu 13y ago
  Because you have 32 bit architecture. It is 2007 or 2008 model?
  - r00fus 13y ago
    Core2's are 64bit chips. It's the graphics card (Intel GMA 950) that Apple is likely deeming too old. Hopefully my 2008 AL macbook stays supported for another release - it's just as nice looking as a modern macbook pro, and with an SSD it's quite functional yet.
    - sbuk 13y ago
      32bit EFI actually.
AshFurrow 13y ago
Vulnerable to what, exactly? Oh, at the end of the article they mention that SL might become vulnerable to some future security flaw. Kind of a link-baity headily if you ask me.
annnnd 13y ago
This is one of the things I love about Linux. There was an announcement at the end of 2012 that kernel will no longer support 386 chip - after 21 years! And distributions will ship older kernels for many additional years. Compare that to MS and Apple forcing new versions of OS (and in Apple's case, hardware) on its users... I can understand their position, but it is still frustrating for the users. I find Windows XP superior to both Vista and Windows 7 (not to mention "Lego" Windows).
- interstitial 13y ago
  And Wordpress is/was going to try the same thing with some official ancient stable/always-security-patched release. I don't follow the WP world anymore. It was a noble thought back then, I just wonder if anyone actually runs the old stable release.
shultays 13y ago
How old is snow leopard?

42 points by esemiss 13y ago

> Apple on Tuesday made it clear that it will no longer patch OS X 10.6, aka Snow Leopard, when it again declined to offer a security update for the four-and-a-half-year-old operating system. Well, The SSL bug only affected Mavericks. Additionally, I don't think we know if the security updates released for mountain lion and lion also affected Snow Leopard. And if it did, well, Apple moves quicker than Microsoft does anyway with new OS release every year. If there are still people running Snow Leopard, either they have an old computer that is more than 5 years old, or they specifically don't want to upgrade to Lion. For the former, Apple knows most people will have upgraded their old computers by now, or will soon in the future. For the latter group, most know what they're doing by not upgrading. Snow Leopard is 4 years old. And the last update for it was September 2013, just 5 months ago. It clearly was Apple's XP, if you will, and the longest supported out of all releases, I think.

interstitial 13y ago
My $2700 Cintiq is 7 years old and works dandy, but Wacom will not be making Maverick drivers -- ever. So I won't be upgrading ever. My TV is 10 years old and working. We have a 15 year old TV in the office. My 2001 ibook is going strong and my six year could use it -- but it can't even be updated to the new wireless networking protocols, and linux abandoned the G3.
- jader201 13y ago
  I can't tell if you're complaining about Apple abandoning support for Snow Leopard, or just making a statement supporting why people still stick to old(er) hardware. If the latter, then I completely understand, and you make a valid point. If the former, though, then my question would be why would one be content with sticking to old(er) hardware, but not be content with sticking to old(er) software? Again, not saying you fall into that boat, but in general, anybody protesting this decision should be asked that question. And it's a genuine question -- maybe there is a valid reason. I just can't think of one.
  - teacup50 13y ago
    > If the former, though, then my question would be why would one be content with sticking to old(er) hardware, but not be content with sticking to old(er) software? Security, and network effects. Supporting deployment back to 10.6 / iOS 6 / etc isn't inherently difficult, but the fast pace of Apple's deployment, the lack of support for downgrading on iOS devices, and the now-constant API churn makes it seem like more hassle than it's worth. Apple is intentionally driving new demand by pushing early obsolescence of old software and hardware.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- atgm 13y ago
  > Wacom will not be making Maverick drivers -- ever For the Cintiq, or in general? Are they necessary? I ask because I have an Intuos Pro and haven't had a problem on Mavericks.
  - interstitial 13y ago
    It's Wacom. They announced it on their site. I could try it, but at this point I'm not up for the trials and tribulation of trying mavericks and having to revert.

cclogg 13y ago

While I don't have any macs still running Snow Leopard, it has a special place in my heart because it can still install Warcraft 3 as well as play many older Mac games pre-Intel.

cubicle67 13y ago

Snow Leopard is the most recent version of OSX able to run on 32 bit Intel machines, like the one I have here. Sure, it's 8 years old but it's still running well and I'm in no hurry to throw it out.

wiredfool 13y ago

The thing about Snow Leopard is that it's the terminal release for 32bit intel machines. Like the one I'm typing on right now, the first white intel macbook. (Though, I recently switched it to Ubuntu 13.10 after a hard drive crash. It might go back. ) For a lot of things, It's still good enough. Chrome works. Mail works. ITunes. And for my purposes, terminal and ssh too. Similarly, I've still got an old PPC mini running Leopard (also it's terminal release) as an iTunes server. It's no speed daemon, but it's not like serving a couple mp3 streams is that hard. But it hasn't gotten updates in a while, so I've got to look at moving on with that one.

akama 13y ago

It does seem strange that Apple, which does a great job regarding fragmentation on the mobile platform, has such difficulties with the issue on desktop platforms.

IBM 13y ago
That will be less of an issue going forward with free OS updates. Then it will just be people who don't want to upgrade for whatever reason that stay behind.

Encosia 13y ago

To put that in perspective, Windows 7 and Snow Leopard were released to manufacturing at about the same time, and that ~4 years is roughly 25% of the time that Microsoft supported Windows XP. I'm biased, but that kind of organization-wide upgrade treadmill would be a nonstarter with most of my clients (ranging from small-business to enterprise). Strange move by Apple if they hope to challenge Microsoft's lion share of PCs in business.

chrisbolt 13y ago
To put your comment into perspective, Vista came out almost 6 years after XP and was a disaster. The next usable (and far more widely adopted) release, Windows 7, came out 8 years after XP. Apple, on the other hand, has a far more rapid release cycle which tends to not break things as much. It's a strange move by Microsoft for them to make huge changes every 5 years, rather than small ones every year or two like Apple. It's much easier to adapt to change incrementally.
- Encosia 13y ago
  If Apple's strategy is so sound and Microsoft's is so flawed, why did all of OS X combined never even manage to crack 50% of Vista's peak user base, according to global web stats[0] over that period? Frankly, I have a hard time believing anyone technically minded really believes Vista was a disaster. Windows 7 was essentially Vista SP3, but people finally had decent hardware by that time and it seemed to be an improvement. [0]: http://gs.statcounter.com/#desktop-os-ww-monthly-200807-201402 http://gs.statcounter.com/#desktop-os-ww-monthly-200807-2014...

doomlaser 13y ago

Snow Leopard was the high watermark release for OS X, before focus and engineering talent migrated to iOS, and successive releases of OS X began to become cluttered with throwaway useless user interface candy and naggy GateKeeper dialogs.

chrisbolt 13y ago
Naggy GateKeeper dialogs? It's extremely rare that I see them, and even then it's nothing like UAC was back in the Vista days.
- teacup50 13y ago
  If you manually extract something and create a broken signature in the process, Gatekeeper helps you out by refusing to open the bundle in ANY application, and instead simply stating that the file is corrupt and should be deleted. I've hit these things often enough that I just turned it off. Gatekeeper doesn't protect against unsigned code execution; it's merely the same old quarantine code with code signing bolted on. It prevents you from stupidly double clicking an evil executable -- in theory.
eropple 13y ago
YMMV, but a lot of that "useless user interface candy" makes my day noticeably better. Launchpad is silly, but Mission Control pretty much changed how I used a computer. I'd been using Macs since 10.4, but I didn't get Macs until Lion. And 10.9 made multi-monitor much much better by making Mission Control desktops per-monitor. This is the best OS X release by far. As far as Gatekeeper dialogs go, I'm curious what you're doing with your machine because I have seen a Gatekeeper complaint exactly once, because Cisco hadn't signed their VPN software (which was really awesome of them).
- teacup50 13y ago
  > Launchpad is silly, but Mission Control pretty much changed how I used a computer. I'd been using Macs since 10.4, but I didn't get Macs until Lion. And 10.9 made multi-monitor much much better by making Mission Control desktops per-monitor YMMV, but Mission Control completely broke the way Spaces worked as compared to prior Mac OS X releases -- which also happens to be the way I've worked since the 90s. I don't need full screen apps, or separate spaces per head, so from my perspective, that change was an enormous net loss. There are work-arounds, but they're imperfect: http://totalspaces.binaryage.com/ http://totalspaces.binaryage.com/ Factor in silly stuff like notification center, and all Apple seems to have done UX-wise for me is make it harder to actually get work done.

wiradikusuma 13y ago

I attempted to upgrade my old MacBook White (Core 2 Duo) to Mavericks, but apparently it only supports Snow Leopard.

liviu 13y ago
Because you have 32 bit architecture. It is 2007 or 2008 model?
- r00fus 13y ago
  Core2's are 64bit chips. It's the graphics card (Intel GMA 950) that Apple is likely deeming too old. Hopefully my 2008 AL macbook stays supported for another release - it's just as nice looking as a modern macbook pro, and with an SSD it's quite functional yet.
  - sbuk 13y ago
    32bit EFI actually.

AshFurrow 13y ago

Vulnerable to what, exactly? Oh, at the end of the article they mention that SL might become vulnerable to some future security flaw. Kind of a link-baity headily if you ask me.

annnnd 13y ago

This is one of the things I love about Linux. There was an announcement at the end of 2012 that kernel will no longer support 386 chip - after 21 years! And distributions will ship older kernels for many additional years. Compare that to MS and Apple forcing new versions of OS (and in Apple's case, hardware) on its users... I can understand their position, but it is still frustrating for the users. I find Windows XP superior to both Vista and Windows 7 (not to mention "Lego" Windows).

interstitial 13y ago
And Wordpress is/was going to try the same thing with some official ancient stable/always-security-patched release. I don't follow the WP world anymore. It was a noble thought back then, I just wonder if anyone actually runs the old stable release.

shultays 13y ago

How old is snow leopard?