Using Mac OS after security support has ended

[jazzer15]

What/how real are the dangers of continuing to use an OS after it is no longer supported? One of our computers can not be upgraded beyond High Sierra, the support for which is expected to end in November. The computer otherwise functions well for its intended purpose (although a HD to SSD upgrade would be helpful).

 

[velocityg4]

Have you considered using the DosDude1 patch and move to Catalina or Mojave?

I don't know what Mac you are using but 120GB to 256GB SSD are really cheap now.

 

[maflynn]

What/how real are the dangers of continuing to use an OS after it is no longer supported?

I'd say the dangers are real, but dependant on your work habits. If you don't visit sketchy sites, or use warez, then your risk decreases. If you just use it for facebook, office apps and the like then you can be relatively comfortable that your machine should be safe

 

[KALLT]

The usual recommendations still apply. Make sure that you are installing trusted software, preferably from the App Store. Keep security features enabled, such as Gatekeeper and System Integrity Protection. Create frequent backups.

I would also stop using Safari and switch to another browser, given that vulnerabilities in Webkit are not that uncommon and can be serious, if exploited. You may also consider setting up separate user accounts if you can divide your activity that way (to restrict important data to a particular user account).

 

[Fishrrman]

"Using Mac OS after security support has ended..."

... seems to work just fine for me.
(nothing follows)

 

[boswald]

I would continue to use it unless there’s a hardware problem somewhere and it’s about to die. No reason to throw out a good computer just because Apple is done with it!

 

[jazzer15]

Have you considered using the DosDude1 patch and move to Catalina or Mojave?

I don't know what Mac you are using but 120GB to 256GB SSD are really cheap now.

How complicated is it to use the patch? It's a late 2009 27 inch iMac i7 quad core. I have been thinking about replacing the HD with an SSD for some time. I've watched the videos and I know it is supposed to be not terribly difficult in the older/somewhat thicker iMacs to replace the drive but it's my wife's machine and I am a little hesitant in case there is a problem.

 

[jazzer15]

I'd say the dangers are real, but dependant on your work habits. If you don't visit sketchy sites, or use warez, then your risk decreases. If you just use it for facebook, office apps and the like then you can be relatively comfortable that your machine should be safe

I think it should be fine then. As I mentioned above, my wife is using the machine. It's pretty much basic web browsing (nothing sketchy), email, iMessage, Parallels to run one Windows program that has some features not available in the Mac version and occasional letter writing.

 

[velocityg4]

How complicated is it to use the patch? It's a late 2009 27 inch iMac i7 quad core. I have been thinking about replacing the HD with an SSD for some time. I've watched the videos and I know it is supposed to be not terribly difficult in the older/somewhat thicker iMacs to replace the drive but it's my wife's machine and I am a little hesitant in case there is a problem.

Catalina works fine in my 21.5 2009 iMac with the patch. It's pretty easy to setup. The website has a video of how to do it. Not many more steps than a clean install from a flash drive.

Hard Drive replacement isn't too difficult either. The biggest worry is breaking a display cable. So, watch a teardown video from OWC or iFixit. While they say use suction cups to take the glass off. I'm at the point where I just pop it off by hand. It's held on with magnets. The biggest pain is removing every mote of dust before putting the glass back.

 

[jazzer15]

Catalina works fine in my 21.5 2009 iMac with the patch. It's pretty easy to setup. The website has a video of how to do it. Not many more steps than a clean install from a flash drive.

Hard Drive replacement isn't too difficult either. The biggest worry is breaking a display cable. So, watch a teardown video from OWC or iFixit. While they say use suction cups to take the glass off. I'm at the point where I just pop it off by hand. It's held on with magnets. The biggest pain is removing every mote of dust before putting the glass back.

Thanks. If I were to do that, which would you do first? If I do the Catalina upgrade first will it be any more difficult to transfer the OS over to an SSD or is it just basically the same routine?

 

[velocityg4]

Thanks. If I were to do that, which would you do first? If I do the Catalina upgrade first will it be any more difficult to transfer the OS over to an SSD or is it just basically the same routine?

I'd do it in one pass to save time. Prepare the flash drive to install the OS. Test that the flash drive boots to installer. Install the SSD. Boot off flash drive, format SSD in Disk Utility and install macOS.

If something doesn't work. Boot off the old HDD via USB adapter and figure out what you need to change with the installer. Although it shouldn't be a problem. As the 2009 iMac with Radeon card isn't on the list of problematic Radeon models (2010-2011).

If you want you can use a USB adapter on the SSD before you install it in the computer. In order to install and test Catalina before you place the SSD in the computer.

 

[jazzer15]

Thanks.

FYI, I set up a USB drive as a bootable drive and tried to boot from it as suggested in the video (as a test at this stage) and it wouldn't boot (got a circle with a line through it which Apple support doc says means that my computer can't use the OS). Doing a little research it seems others have had similar problems although some have solved it by putting the using a different flash or USB drive. I guess I'll try that next. These things never go as easily for me as they seem to for others. LOL

 

[LegacyUser12]

I used Leopard until about... 2015 or 2016. The risks were there and are worse now.