[jiveturkey]

> she tends to stick with the pre-installed OS

That's not a great idea security-wise. Apple has formally committed to only updating the latest major version for security fixes. Of course, they have backported some fixes, but even in early 2023 those backports were highly delayed and incomplete.

If you're talking 7-8 years (and the hardware is certainly good for that long) of still using the OS as shipped, I feel like that is a mistake. The most painful updates are when they do the very large refactors, like Mojave->Catalina, then Catalina->Bug Sir. I am guessing whatever comes after Sonoma will be a biggie also.

I am still on Catalina for my media server. I don't dare update it. But it's not connected to Internet.

[bakugo]

> That's not a great idea security-wise.

Unfortunately, a computer that doesn't do whatever you need it to do is useless, regardless of how "secure" it is.

[kilpikaarna]

This.

I personally like (older, 2010-2015) Apple hardware because it's sturdy, looks pretty nice, generally holds up over time, their touchpads and keyboards are the best I've found on laptops, shopping for new-to-me hardware is easy (and cheap) because of the limited model range and everymac.com, etc. Unfortunately the repairability went down for a good while, and build quality took a nosedive with the butterfly keyboards etc. The Apple Silicon machines seem nice, but there's even less upgrade possibilities than my 2014 MacBook Air, that at least has replaceable storage. How well they will hold up over time (decade-plus) is unknown still.

Catalina is about the newest OS any of my Macs will run. Still using Mojave, however, since I want to keep using my old paid-for (no scammy SaaS, which neither want or can afford) copy of Adobe CS3, which needs Carbon. Even by Mojave, it seems to me Apple had been locking the OS down and nerfing the Unix features way past the point of diminishing returns and into decline. It seems to only have gotten way worse since then.

So all in all, living with an "insecure" operating system seems like the lesser evil. I use an up to date browser (although it's only a matter of time before those are no longer available, I guess), browse from behind a Firewall + NAT if possible, make regular backups and keep an eye out for suspicious looking processes or ones using a lot of CPU or battery. The risks/drawbacks honestly seem pretty theoretical compared to the very practical drawbacks of trying to stay current. And I'm not even counting the monetary outlay of trying to stay current.

"Bug Sir" is such a great typo.

edit: Forgot that in addition to Adobe CS3 I also have a copy of MS Office 2011, that I found boxed at a flea market for the price of one month of o365 or something.

[dylan604]

>Catalina->Bug Sir

Was that intentional or freudian?