I am just curious how many users are still using older OS’s still in mid-2018?
I do...OS X Lion is the last OS X to be able to run 32-bit apps and drivers for hardware. It you boot up in 32-bit mode (if you have an older Mac) you are able to use 32-bit stuff. I use Waterfox as a browser that still supports older OS’s. I would use OS X Snow Leopard, but what I still use only runs on OS X Lion and greater.
Many hate OS X Lion, but it runs good with more RAM (I have 16 GB) and an SSD, so I don’t have some of the issues that I have heard from others.
What is your guess? Do you still use an older OS? What older OS do you think is still the most popular and still used in 2018?
I still use Lion and Mavericks alongside
High Sierra Mojave - my signature tells it. Was on Lion (default OS) for 4 full years, had installed Mavericks twice, the 2nd time came after those same 4 years when I finally upgraded my Mac with better internals to make for faster performance. During my stay with Lion, I had a chance to examine its pluses and minuses fully, and actually got stuck in it as the majority of my workflows had become centered around things I got used to too much to wish to upgrade and break them. Every macOS has its downsides and advantages. Actually, I felt a bit contained regarding improvements in new OSes comparing those with older ones: everything is not so cut and dried. When you actually work and have deeper knowledge you start noticing a plethora of small things that make your assessment more sharpened and focused.
There were things I liked in Mavericks and High Sierra - speed,
some bug fixes that annoyed me in Lion. Other things seem disappointingly unfriendly, over-secured, over-thought. The most important aspect - UI - is better in older macOS by an infinite order of magnitude, especially on non-Retina screens. Graphical performance feels sluggish with High Sierra: the same animations are silky smooth in Mavericks and Lion, and High Sierra feels utter trash at times, although on a general scale it seems to run a bit faster but not to make a striking contrast. ScriptEditor is broken in Mavericks to the point of being unusable: hangs after a long time of the document in open state, and only force-quitting helps. Preview annotations were given a lenient attitude on the pathway from Mavericks to High Sierra and further on. Etc etc.
Currently 70% of the time I spend in Lion, another 25 in Mavericks. Can't stand High Sierra, although my machine supports even Catalina but given a lot of removed features and incompatibility with some apps I can't live without, the OS is unwelcome overkill for me.
P.S. Indeed, Lion runs a lot better with SSD and maxed out RAM. - day and night. It was actually the 1st Mac OS X that was greedy about RAM and a disk speed; apparently, it was a transformative milestone on the route of growing complexity of the Mac OS X that was to become macOS eventually.
P.P.S. I eventually installed Mojave which is a better alternative to High Sierra, runs smoother.