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

  • 26 February 2014
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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.

As Apple issued an update for Mavericks, or OS X 10.9, as well as for its two predecessors, Mountain Lion (10.8) and Lion (10.7), Apple had nothing for Snow Leopard or its owners yesterday.

Snow Leopard was also ignored in December, when Apple patched Safari 6 and 7 for newer editions of OS X, but did not update Safari 5.1.10, the most-current Apple browser for the OS.

Apple delivered the final security update for Snow Leopard in September 2013.

Traditionally, Apple has patched only the OS X editions designated as "n" and "n-1" -- where "n" is the newest -- and discarded support for "n-2" either before the launch of "n" or immediately after. Under that plan, Snow Leopard was "n-2" when Mountain Lion shipped in mid-2012, and by rights should have been retired around then.
 
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That is a bummer, especially given how long their computers last.
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Good thing I upgraded to Maverick OS. I really liked Snow Leopard and my computer is old...like 7 years. It's another way to get people to buy new systems. I'm not very tech savy but Apple shouldn't leave any of it's operating systems without any support! Especially with Apples so called Secure System and reputation for hard to get viruses...
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Welcome to Webroot Community sherjj.
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Thank you! I enjoy this site. Great job with keeping us informed. It'll be hard to keep up with all you Webroot techs....hope I can contribute in some way. Thanks again for all the information and knowledge everyone contributes!
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Most of us are volunteers sherjj, and my full time job is about as far removed from IT as you can get 😃
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@ wrote:
Most of us are volunteers sherjj, and my full time job is about as far removed from IT as you can get :D
You can tell those of us who work for Webroot by the green W next to our accounts.  As @ mentions, most of the answers on here come from our awesome and enthusiastic community members.
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Great I feel better already working with volunteers...help me to help others...awesome!

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