My parents have an older iMac (2.5 GHz i5 , 4 GB DDR3 ram) that they do not want to change; the most updated Mac OS they can run is Sierra; thus the latest version of Safari they can run is 12.1.2 (the current is 16.1). Is there a more modern browser they can run?
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Best Available Browser for OS Sierra
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The latest version of Firefox still runs on Sierra as of today.
I was actually referring to Firefox 109 but ESR equally countsYep, I'm using it.
That means they can update their iMac to High Sierra and use the latest version of Chrome as well.
Moving away from Safari to any other better supported browser like Firefox or Opera would be the easiest way.
As @Heindijs mentioned, that iMac officially can be upgraded to HighSierra.
But with that i5 iMac You can even upgrade to patched_Mojave without any stomach ache or great effort.
Patched_Catalina would be also possible, but You'll loose 32bit support, which might be critical for Your parents iMac, since iPhoto and Aperture would then stop working. With patched_Mojave You may even keep the harddrive in HFS+ partition-scheme (instead of APFS) and Mojave is a lot more faster than Catalina.
Before going the patched-upgrade way it's important to have 2-3 clone backups on external USB-drives at hand. It's important anyway for every Mac.
Patch-Upgrade with a patcher from @dosdude1 is a no-brainer. He should be on Apple's pay-roll for his extraordinary work!
1. Create a 16GB partition with DiskUtility at the very end of Your parents iMac harddrive.
2. Download the patcher from http://dosdude1.com/software.html
3. Install the patcher and download / install the patched macOS-installer to that 16GB partition (instead of the recommended USB-stick. So You have a Patch-Utility allways at hands)
4. Boot from the 16GB partition (press ALT on booting to choose the booting-drive), that holds the patched macOS installer and run the macOS upgrade on the iMac's system-partion.
5. After finishing the macOS-Upgrade reboot again from the 16GB macOS-installer partition and run the patcher to fit macOS to Your current iMac hardware.
6. Boot into Your iMacs system partition
I've done that a lot of times with a bunch of different Core2Duo-Macs without ever having any trouble.
On the other hand HighSierra is the last supported macOS-version and is said to offer a slightly better performance compared to Mojave, but it lacks the dark theme of Mojave, which I do prefer very much.
As @Heindijs mentioned, that iMac officially can be upgraded to HighSierra.
But with that i5 iMac You can even upgrade to patched_Mojave without any stomach ache or great effort.
Patched_Catalina would be also possible, but You'll loose 32bit support, which might be critical for Your parents iMac, since iPhoto and Aperture would then stop working. With patched_Mojave You may even keep the harddrive in HFS+ partition-scheme (instead of APFS) and Mojave is a lot more faster than Catalina.
Before going the patched-upgrade way it's important to have 2-3 clone backups on external USB-drives at hand. It's important anyway for every Mac.
Patch-Upgrade with a patcher from @dosdude1 is a no-brainer. He should be on Apple's pay-roll for his extraordinary work!
1. Create a 16GB partition with DiskUtility at the very end of Your parents iMac harddrive.
2. Download the patcher from http://dosdude1.com/software.html
3. Install the patcher and download / install the patched macOS-installer to that 16GB partition (instead of the recommended USB-stick. So You have a Patch-Utility allways at hands)
4. Boot from the 16GB partition (press ALT on booting to choose the booting-drive), that holds the patched macOS installer and run the macOS upgrade on the iMac's system-partion.
5. After finishing the macOS-Upgrade reboot again from the 16GB macOS-installer partition and run the patcher to fit macOS to Your current iMac hardware.
6. Boot into Your iMacs system partition
I've done that a lot of times with a bunch of different Core2Duo-Macs without ever having any trouble.
On the other hand HighSierra is the last supported macOS-version and is said to offer a slightly better performance compared to Mojave, but it lacks the dark theme of Mojave, which I do prefer very much.
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