Browsers by Mac operating system
As of Sepember 16, 2024 Safari 18 was only made for Ventura, Sonoma, and Sequoia.
As of July 29, 2024 Safari 17.6 was made available for Sonoma, Ventura, and Monterey via the Software Update channels of Apple menu -> About this Mac, Apple menu System Preferences (Monterey), System Settings (Ventura and Sonoma).
As of September 26, 2023, the following browser compatibility exists (order is completely arbitrary):
September 26, 2023 - Sonoma release, and Safari update to version 17 for Ventura and Monterey.
September 21, 2023 - last updates for Ventura, Monterey, and Big Sur.
Below, we mention Apple Silicon & Intel. Apple Silicon Are the Mx processor where x can be a number or a number with a plus symbol. 2020 and later released Macs all are Apple Silicon.
2006 to 2019 Macs were all Intel.
March 1994-2005 Macs were part of Apple's joint venture with IBM and Motorola, called PowerPC.
First by operation system, links to individual browsers by system will follow the list by OS. You may find on download sites earlier versions of these browsers, but they are not necessarily secure, and often these sites have advertisements for malware (the direct operating system links go to how to upgrade to those systems):
14.7 Sonoma - Vivaldi, Safari, Edge, Brave, Chrome, Opera, Firefox, Waterfox (Intel only), iCab
13.7 Ventura - Vivaldi, Safari, Edge, Brave, Chrome, Opera, Firefox, Waterfox (Intel only), iCab
12.7.6 Monterey - Vivaldi, Edge, Brave, Chrome, Opera, Firefox, Waterfox (Intel only), iCab
11.7.10 Big Sur - Vivaldi, Edge, Brave, Chrome, Opera, Firefox, Waterfox (Intel only), iCab
10.15.7* Catalina - Vivaldi, Edge, Brave, Chrome, Opera, Firefox, Waterfox, iCab
First OS to support only 64 bit applications. Safari is not up to date on this or any older operating system
10.14.6 Mojave - Vivaldi, Edge, Brave, Chrome, Opera, Firefox 115 last release, Waterfox, iCab
10.13.6 High Sierra - Vivaldi, Edge, Brave, Chrome, Opera, Firefox 115 last release, Waterfox, iCab
10.12.6 Sierra - Vivaldi, Omniweb, Edge, Brave, Chrome, Opera, Firefox 115 last release, Waterfox, iCab. 10.12.4 first OS
to support Apple iCloud/account multifactor authentication. Previous OSes may support the code as a suffix to the password entered.
10.11.6 El Capitan - VIvaldi, Omniweb, Brave, Chrome, Opera, Firefox (July 2021 last Security update), Waterfox, iCab
note: for many El Capitan is the end of the line for their model. Any Mac that can be upgraded to 10.8.5 can be upgraded to 10.11.6
10.10.5 Yosemite - Omniweb, Firefox (July 2021 last Security update), Waterfox, iCab
10.9.5 Mavericks - Omniweb, Firefox (July 2021 last Security update), Waterfox, iCab
10.8.5 Mountain Lion - Omniweb, Arctic Fox, Waterfox, iCab, Spiderweb, Snow Monkey (10.8.3 is minimum for Java 8)
10.7.5 Lion - Omniweb, Arctic Fox, Waterfox, iCab, Spiderweb, Snow Monkey (10.7.3 is minimum for Java 7)
10.4 Tiger, 10.5 Leopard, 10.6.8 Snow Leopard - Omniweb, iCab, Tenfourfox, Spiderweb, Snow Monkey, Interweb PPC listed primarily for PowerPC on 10.4 and 10.5. 10.4.4 was the oldest system to run on Intel Macs.
10.3 to 10.3.9 Panther - Classila, iCab, Tenfourfox
10.2.8 Jaguar and earlier, Classila and iCab.
Note: Chromium is not to be confused with Chrome. As many users have found Chromium early sources before it was secured, I do not mention it, and recommend only using the above browsers unless you are sure the Chromium version you are using is safe. Edge was based off of Chromium's original genuine distribution.
September 26, 2023 Safari 17 only available for Monterey, Ventura, and Sonoma
September 21, 2023 Safari 16.6.1 Last available version for Big Sur via Apple menu -> About This Mac -> Software Update.
August 18, 2022 Safari 15.6.1 Last update for Catalina through Apple menu -> About This Mac -> Software Update.
Safari 17.2.1 is the latest and is available only for Monterey, Sonoma and Ventura through Apple menu -> About This Mac -> Softawre Update. Prior releases of Safari are not as secure, and may have certificate issues with some websites. Use an alternate web browser if you aren't running one of these three operating systems.
Microsoft Edge - For Mac OS 10.12 and later.
Vivaldi, for Mac OS 10.11 and later.
Brave - for Mac OS 10.11 and later. - not compatible on Mojave with Netflix
Opera - for Mac OS 10.11 and later.
Chrome - for Mac OS 10.11 and later.
Omniweb - for Mac OS X 10.4 through 10.12. 10.12 release never was finalized.
Interweb PowerPC - for PowerPC Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5.
Firefox ESR - for 10.9 through 10.11.6 (July 2021 support to end), 10.12-current (version 89). - Not compatible with Mojave Netflix
Waterfox - for 10.7, 10.8, 10.9, 10.10 and Intel newer.
Arctic Fox & Snow Monkey - for PowerPC 10.4, 10.5, Intel 10.6 to 10.8.
SnowLeopard - https://lowendmac.com/2015/what-is-the-best-browser-for-os-x-10-6-snow-leopard/ discusses various browsers that are good for Snow Leopard, and which ones are best for compatibility of different features.
Tenfourfox - PowerPC browser for Mac OS X 10.3 through 10.5.8. Per comments below the G3 release works on 10.6 Rosetta.
Classila - Mac OS 8.6 to X 10.3.9.
iCab - Every Mac OS since before X to present.
Chromium - not referenced because of the early releases ending up being used as a fake substitute for Chrome because of naming by many trojan horse authors. The ability to tell the difference between the two releases has never been fully documented from what I have seen.
Wavebrowser - another browser that has been distributed to unlikely victims. who think just any web browser might be good.
Chrome://policy if you have Google Chrome, and you see a .xyz website or .int website instead of the standard chrome.policy, search for references to the weknow.ac malware for Mac. This is an terrible plugin that redirects the default search engine on Google Chrome by modifying Google Chrome's preference and cache files.
Apple's operating system by name:
9.0.4 and earlier were Mac OS systems that weren't commonly known by their code names.
Mac OS 9.1 to 9.2.2 are Classic operating systems, that can run in virtualization within Mac OS X on a PowerPC Mac. Apple shifted to Intel Macs in 2006 and that ended PowerPC support except for some applications that ran in a Rosetta environment on Mac OS X until 10.7 was released July 22, 2011.
10.0 Cheetah 10.1 Puma, 10.2 Jaguar 10.3 Panther 10.4 Tiger 10.5 Leopard 10.6 Snow Leopard 10.7 Lion 10.8 Mountain Lion 10.9 Mavericks 10.10 Yosemite 10.11 El Capitan 10.12 Sierra 10.13 High Sierra 10.14 Mojave 10.15 Catalina
11 Big Sur. These were each upgrades and discussed in my series of tips starting with 10.2.
Adobe Flash as of December 31, 2020 is no longer supported. There is an uninstaller on Adobe's website.
Visit Java.com for Java updates. Java 8v202 is last open license released by Oracle. Later releases may have specific financial obligations to Oracle depending on your company license agreement. Java is frequently used as a backend for many crossplatform stand alone applications, so if you depend on third party applications, make sure the version you need works with all of them before changing the version on your computer. Clone backup your data before changing your Java.
Some historical tidbits: Javascript is client based rendering code that is browser dependent, and in the case of ECMA support platform dependent, as Microsoft wrote its own counterpart to Javascript called JScript. ActiveX based rendering is platform dependent, and you will want to consider running a Microsoft Windows platform operating system on your Mac if you need to browse such sites. Windows XP was the last version of Internet Explorer not to support HTML5, whereas Windows 7 had a version of Internet Explorer to support HTML5, which is completely server based website rendering. To avoid browser incompatibility, it is best to use server based coding that does not require plugins. See both W3.org and Anybrowser.org for tidbits.
Another excellent resource for web browsers is https://www.macstrategy.com/article.php?6
*July 24, 2023 Apple released the last Safari patch for Big Sur, and Monterey via Software Update in the Apple menu, and not the Software Download website. Safari 15.6 was the last update for Catalina, on July 20, 2022. Catalina was the last Mac OS to receive a website based security patch download. All the rest have been exclusively via App Store on upgrades, and Apple menu -> About This Mac -> Software Update, and Apple menu -> System Settings/Preferences (Ventura and Sonoma have Settings) -> Software Update. Named systems are upgrades, where as decimal systems of those upgrades are updates.
