Is it still secure to use Snow Leopard?

Don't listen to all these people telling you NOT to use Safari. I have a iMac from 2010 and have not liked any OS X since Snow Leopard. All bells and whistles and loss of functionality (not to mention commandeering much of your RAM). I have 8GB of RAM and could easily upgrade to Yosemite but won't. Yeah it's annoying when you visit certain sites and they use user agent detection and try and force you to upgrade but I won't. All these people love to try an scare you into converting by saying OMG your computer will be toast if you hit one bad site. It could happen to any computer on any OS X. Just be smart and never download weird things. I always go to my library in finder and clear out caches, cookies, metadata, clear all local storage etc. I don't use extensions and deny all third party cookies. I clean daily. You can use older OS X/ Safari just use common sense on the internet. Don't listen to scare tactics. My g/f has yosemite and hates it. I've messed with it and it's really annoying. Not everyone wants mobile everything. I like desktop everything. Snow Leopard is very fast for me as like I said before I clear anything that could slow it down constantly.

Chris Ibsen wrote:

All these people love to try an scare you into converting by saying OMG your computer will be toast if you hit one bad site. It could happen to any computer on any OS X.

That is not at all true. Currently, there is no known way to install something via drive-by download on up-to-date versions of Safari. Your computer absolutely will NOT be toast just from visiting a bad site in Safari at this time, based on any currently available information.

Safari in Snow Leopard, however, hasn't been updated since 2013. I haven't kept myself updated on possible security issues with Safari in Snow Leopard, because I haven't used Snow Leopard in many years, and don't even own any machines that can run it anymore. However, there is a distinct possibility that some of the vulnerabilities that have been fixed for newer versions of Safari in the last two years could also be a problem for Safari 5.1.10 in Snow Leopard, but were not fixed.

Thus, it is possible that drive-by vulnerabilities exist in Safari on Snow Leopard. The only thing keeping you somewhat safe from such things is the fact that Snow Leopard is a shrinking target, probably not worth attacking by most hackers.

Regardless I still say if you remain sensible about being on the internet there is no reason to upgrade. Perhaps not everyone is in love with OS X bloatware (and to be frank Apple hasn't been too innovative in a long time) or maybe they have a machine that cannot upgrade any further. Logical reasons for sticking with what you like. Scare tactics to try an force upgrades are just that- fear mongering.

Chris Ibsen wrote:

Scare tactics to try an force upgrades are just that- fear mongering.

I'm trying to provide realistic and factual information about the threat level and possibilities for concern, as well as techniques for mitigating the risk (such as using an alternate, more up-to-date web browser), for those sticking with Snow Leopard. If you have some additional factual information to provide, please do so, but don't accuse me of fear-mongering when I'm doing nothing of the kind. Upgrading may not be the solution for everyone, but sticking your head in the sand and ignoring the issues is not a real solution for anyone.