Been asked by friend to fix "Safari can't open page" and Chrome "Connection is not secure" issues. Tried everything, no success. However, she is using MacBook Pro mid-2012 running Yosemite 10.10.5 and also uses Word 2011 (32-bit?) Is the problem that all her stuff is just too old? Also, can I at least update her to Yosemite 11 without losing her Word program?
It's almost certainly the case that the versions of Safari and Chrome she is using are too old and many websites will no longer work with them due to security issues. I don't think you'll fix it by updating to El Capitan. I don't know about the compatibility between Word 2011 and later OS's I'm afraid, but, realistically, she's going to have to buy a new(er) Mac sooner rather than later.
I use a 2011 iMac with Mavericks 10.9 and have got around the browser problems (for now...) by using these :
Chromium Legacy built on Chrome 124 (not being updated further but fine for now):
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/chromium-legacy-google-chrome-for-os-x-10-7-10-9.2283612/
Firefox Dynasty (constantly being updated with build based on latest Firefox):
https://github.com/i3roly/firefox-dynasty ('Latest' download under 'Releases' lower right)
It appears to be possible to upgrade a MacBook Pro mid-2012 to macOS 10.15 Catalina.
https://everymac.com/systems/by_year/macs-released-in-2012.html
With macOS 10.15 Catalina, the latest version of the Firefox browser would be supported.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/desktop-release/osx/
However, you need to check which exact Mac operating system version would be the last to work with Word 2011.
If necessary, LibreOffice could perhaps be an alternative.
https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/system-requirements/#Apple
Unable to get Safari and Chrome to open pages
