Any problems upgrading from OSX 10.8.5 to MacOS Sierra

[maclad]

I resisted upgrading to El Capitan because of the negative comments about it, I just wondered about peoples experience of upgrading from OSX 10.8.5 (Mountain Lion I think) to MacOS Sierra? I feel that I should upgrade because of security issues. My main use is Safari, Mac email, Word, Excel and Preview.

Apple are only offering me the upgrade to MacOS Sierra, El Capitan and Yosemite do not seem to be available.

EDIT:
Neither Apple or Firefox are suppling updates for this version of mac.

 

[Fishrrman]

Tell us about the Mac you have.
Does it have an internal HDD (platter-based hard drive), or does it have an SSD or fusion drive?

If it has an HDD, you may discover that running any version of the Mac OS after Mountain Lion will feel more like "walking", then "running" ...

 

[maclad]

Thanks Fishrrman, yes it appears to be HDD, as the "About this mac" shows a disc drive and it is a "SATA Disk".

 

[Ebenezum]

Could you post the exact model of the Mac and amount of RAM installed? You can find it on the Apple menu>About this Mac.

You are probably using normal Firefox, ESR (Extended support release) version is still supporting 10.8. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/faq/

 

[maclad]

Thanks Ebenezum for the Firefox link, although in this link below it says that support will only be available until 2017:-

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-osx

My about says;-

Overview:-
MacBook Pro
15-inch, Mid 2012
Processor 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 1024 MB
Software OS X 10.8.5

Built-in Color LCD Display:-
15-inch (1440 x 900)
NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 1024 MB graphics

Storage:-
750 GB SATA Disk

Memory:-
8 GB istalled (2 x 4 GB)
Your Mac contains 2 memory slots, each of which accepts
a 1600 MHz DDR3 memory module.

 

[MSastre]

I'm running El Capitan on a early 2009 17" Macbook Pro, but I also replaced the HD with an SSD from Crucial.

 

[maclad]

I'm running El Capitan on a early 2009 17" Macbook Pro, but I also replaced the HD with an SSD from Crucial.

Thanks, but apple are not offering me the upgrade to El Capitan, only MacOS Sierra.

 

[MSastre]

Go for it if you have an SSD .. I'm running it as a test on one of my drives in a Mac Pro 5.1. I might test it out on a regular drive on my laptop using a dock, copy existing laptop drive to a similar drive, then installing Sierra over that and booting up from it. Easy enough to go back and forth to see how it functions.

 

[maclad]

Thanks MSastre but I have a HDD, as the "About this mac" shows a disc drive and it is a "SATA Disk".

 

[Ebenezum]

While your Mac is otherwise reasonable fast hard drive is the limiting factor, all newer OS versions are slower compared to 10.8.5 without a SSD.

As for security its hard to say for sure since 10.8 has unpatched vulnerabilities but on the other hand it doesn't have some of the vulnerabilities present in the newer OS since it lacks the vulnerable features (iCloud Drive etc.)

Assuming you haven't installed any third party extensions such as Flash, you don't enable Javascript unless necessary and your router has up to date firewall its unlikely you would have any problems. You might want to look for open source browser that still supports 10.8 but unfortunately I don't remember any example at the moment...

You could update to Sierra if you wish but some of the features/ software available in Mountain Lion are very lacking in Sierra. Some examples: Disk Utility, System Preferences, Console etc. If you don't need the removed features then its not an issue.

For the record I'm using Mavericks and at the moment I see no reason to update because the newer OS has very little benefits for my needs and many downsides.