I have Mac osx 10.7.5 and safari 6.1.6 my bank won't allow me to access my accounts they say I am unsupported They recommend only Internet Explorer or Firefox I see I can update to a later Apple version but I don't understand what that does to

Back up your data and check your applications for compatibility before upgrading.

If you’d rather not upgrade to Yosemite, you can instead buy a download code for Mountain Lion from the online Apple Store, or switch browsers and remain on Lion.

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Upgrade to Yosemite 10.10.4, the latest version:

Upgrading to Yosemite

You can upgrade to Yosemite from Lion or directly from Snow Leopard. Yosemite can be downloaded from the Mac App Store for FREE.

Upgrading to Yosemite

To upgrade to Yosemite you must have Snow Leopard 10.6.8 or Lion installed. Download Yosemite from the App Store. Sign in using your Apple ID. Yosemite is free. The file is quite large, over 5 GBs, so allow some time to download. It would be preferable to use Ethernet because it is nearly four times faster than wireless.

OS X Mavericks/Yosemite- System Requirements

Macs that can be upgraded to OS X Yosemite

1. iMac (Mid 2007 or newer) - Model Identifier 7,1 or later

2. MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer) - Model Identifier 5,1 or later

3. MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later

4. MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer) - Model Identifier 2,1 or later

5. Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later

6. Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later

7. Xserve (Early 2009) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later

To find the model identifier open System Profiler in the Utilities folder. It's displayed in the panel on the right.

Are my applications compatible?

See App Compatibility Table - RoaringApps.

Please be sure you do the following before upgrading:

Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions - Yosemite, Mavericks, Mountain Lion or Lion

Boot to the Recovery HD:

Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.

Repair

When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility and press the Continue button. After Disk Utility loads select the Macintosh HD entry from the the left side list. Click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If Disk Utility reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit Disk Utility and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.

Uninstall all incompatible third-party software or upgrade it. Disconnect all external peripherals except the original keyboard and mouse. Make a bootable backup of your current system should you need it.

Some banks are notoriously uncaring and lazy about what systems and browsers they support.

As it says in this document:

http://developer.apple.com/internet/safari/

"Safari complies with standards, but not all browsers do. This article explains how to design, modify and validate your website so that it can be rendered and read properly by all major browsers."

Try this: after you have logged into your bank's page, open another tab or window with http://validator.w3.org/ and paste in the URL of your bank's page, which will reveal any noncompliance with standards.

The bank/s need to read this:

"Safari is one of the most standards-compliant browsers ever built. Thus, your best bet for ensuring your pages render properly in Safari — today’s version and beyond — is to follow web standards. For a great overview of web standards, check out Mozilla.org’s article Using Web Standards in Your Web Pages."

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Using_Web_Standards_in_your_Web_Pages

1. There is no combo update for getting from 10.7.5 to anything newer. You need to get the full installer from the Mac App Store.

2. Back them up.

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Connect an external drive and either drag-copy them to it or use a product such as Time Machine, or the Disk Utility, Carbon Copy Cloner, or SuperDuper to create a bootable clone. If you’re backing up an iPhoto library, it needs to be put onto a volume formatted as Mac OS Extended.

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