Os X 10.8.5 Mountain Lion - Safari not opening pages and freezes?

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Os X 10.8.5 Mountain Lion - Safari not opening pages and freezes?

Hi! I am new on here, so please bear with me.

I mentioned to a colleague that my Safari browser is very often not opening pages, saying it can't establish a secure connection to the server / page that I wanted to visit. Nothing exciting BTW, in fact quite boring stuff like insurance websites! It also freezes a lot. For example, if I am listening to a piece of music on youtube, I can't open another webpage and the rainbow ball appears and starts swirling…this issue has not happened before, until the past few weeks. I have checked that space is not an issue on my laptop.

My colleague asked me why I am still on the old OS X Mountain Lion and have not upgraded since I bought the computer? Well, I was afraid that it may cause problems for the Parallels 8 package that I installed at the time to run a windows partition. That was my reason. Incase the new versions of Apple operating systems are not compatible with the Parallels.

Now, I am wondering, is it because I did not upgrade to the newer operating systems such as Mavericks...and now Sierra, that this has caused Safari to not function properly? According to Safari, I have the latest version installed…

It is a wild assumption of course, the two may not link at all.

Can someone shed some light on this issue?

Thank you!

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)

Posted on Mar 14, 2017 12:50 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

MichelPM

Level 10

81,284 points

Mar 14, 2017 4:51 PM in response to Anita632

That version of Safari for OS X 10.8.5 has been unsupported jfor about a year, now, and hasn't received any further updates and maybe unsecure, now, also.

Switch your web browser to the Waterfox Web Browser, instead.

Waterfox Web Browser is THE ONLY current web browser left for OS X 10.8.5 Mountain Lion.

The latest version of Waterfox STILL supports OS X 10.8.5 Mountain Lion and newer Mac OSes.

https://www.waterfoxproject.org/

Good Luck!

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Answer 2

Eric Root

Level 10

684,567 points

Mar 15, 2017 10:35 AM in response to Anita632

One option is to create a new partition (~30- 50 GB), install the new OS, and ‘test drive’ it. If you like/don’t like it it, you can then remove the partition. Do a backup before you do anything. By doing this, if you don’t like it you won’t have to go though the revert process.

Check to make sure your applications are compatible.

Application Compatibility

Applications Compatibility (2)

El Capitan 10.11 Compatibility information

macOS Sierra 10.12: Compatible Apps

Also check to make sure there is a compatible driver for your printer.

Open Disk Utility, select your hard drive (step 1), then the Partition tab (step 2), and select the partition. Using the /// at the bottom move it up (step 3) until the size box decrease by about 50 GB. Select the newly created space and hit the + button (step 4). Name it something and select Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as the format (step 5). Then hit the Apply button(step 6). Download the installer from the App Store and when it starts, point it at the new partition. You might want to make a copy of the installer outside the Applications folder to avoid having to re-download it in the future. Once installed, restart with the option/alt key held down, select the new partition and reboot. Test away.

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Answer 3

Anita632 Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 15, 2017 1:22 AM in response to MichelPM

Thank you MichelPM for your insight, I had no idea about Safari not supporting OS X 10.8.5 as you can tell!!

In the meantime, I will change my browser.

However, I do like using Safari. Is it a good idea to upgrade to the new operating system Sierra in order to use Safari and be supported? Since most Mac users I know use Safari. I know Apple tells us everytime an upgraded system is faster and better than the last… What is your or anyone else's view with upgrades? Any problems with other software not being compatible?

Much appreciated! 🙂

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Answer 4

MichelPM

Level 10

81,284 points

Mar 15, 2017 3:11 AM in response to Anita632

Anita632 wrote:

Thank you MichelPM for your insight, I had no idea about Safari not supporting OS X 10.8.5 as you can tell!!

In the meantime, I will change my browser.

However, I do like using Safari. Is it a good idea to upgrade to the new operating system Sierra in order to use Safari and be supported? Since most Mac users I know use Safari. I know Apple tells us everytime an upgraded system is faster and better than the last… What is your or anyone else's view with upgrades? Any problems with other software not being compatible?

Much appreciated! 🙂

Well,

You have just met a Mac user who hardly ever used Apple's Safari Web Browser.

I have been a Mozilla Firefox web browser user (what Waterfox is based on) since it was introduced about 15 years, ago.

Firefox is more flexible and extensible than Safari has ever been. It's my preferred web browser of choice.

In addition, because I use lots of older, legacy software, I am forever tied to both OS X 10.8.5 Mountain Lion and

OS X 10.9.5 Mavericks.

If you feel you rather use latest version of Safari, then you have no choice, but to upgrade to the latest Mac OS.

Without knowing the details of your Mac and if you have critical software that you use everyday, it is hard to advise if this is a good idea for YOU, or not.

You can check for software compatibility here.

http://roaringapps.com/

IF you decide to upgrade your Mac OS, be advise that newer versions of OS X need a base minimum hardware RAM of 8 GBs, now.

Make sure you have, at least, one good backup of your current system, preferrably two, (either a Time Machine backup or a "cloned" system copy backup) on a large capacity, good quality, external hard drive before you proceed with any major Mac OS system upgrades/updates, in case something goes wrong.

Good Luck to You.

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