MacRumours in their wisdom will not give a category for discussing Snow Leopard - they only go back to Lion. This is probably because Snow Leopard remains the best version of OS X even today, and Apple are determined to bury it and force us all to buy inferior products.
I use SL on my 2010 Macbook Pro because it has the last Mail interface I can live with - I struggle with remembering things and find scrolling hard to live with - therefore an easily sortable list of emails, with one-per-line listing, allowing many more items per page, is essential. This was dropped on or after Lion in order to make it more like iOS. Furthermore, the Disk Utility on SL is far superior to anything since. The stability and reliability of 10.6.8 is also well understood.
I do not like at all the latest snooping backdoors insisted on by State and Commercial interests, which I consider to be even less secure than old operating systems. These cannot be turned off, are constantly being updated without my knowledge or consent, take away suddenly functionality I rely on and then install most unwanted bloatware and adware, and rely on the Cloud rather than offline storage, meaning that my data can be held to ransom by some corporation somewhere. I never forget or forgive how Google destroyed the Panoramio archive, nor the recent wiping of the Disqus Channels archive.
I use and keep updated as much antivirus software I can lay my hands on, and take the usual precautions about not clicking on dodgy email links. I also turn off my WiFi and router often in an attempt to thwart hackers. I know all too well that SL has not had security updates for many years.
I also run XP through an old version of Parallels Desktop, which fills a number of OS X's shortcomings - my printer likes XP better; XP has a better file management interface, and there are a number of legacy apps that only run on XP. XP has not had any security updates since April 2019, so in a sense it is a little more secure than SL, even though hackers do prefer to do their business through Windows.
My problem right now is the warnings coming up from Facebook, iPlayer and possibly YouTube that they will not support my browser any longer. The latest browser I have found is Firefox 45 ESR, although that has recently started crashing my system, so I had to revert to Firefox 48, which is stable for now. Other browsers such as Roccat and Arctic Fox are older technology. The Google/Opera family will not load on SL, insisting on a poorer later of OS X before they will install. One of my internet banking websites also no longer works on FF48 - coming up with white pages when clicking on links, although it still works on FF53 running through XP. I don't like to hang around XP online for too long when banking. though.
What I am after is a workround that enables me to keep using Facebook, iPlayer and internet banking without exposing me to the horrors of current software and website design upgrades that I find I cannot live with. Or do I need to go back to pen-and-ink and give up on the internet as it closes down around me? Is there some mileage in going down the Linux route? If so, which is the best distro, ideally one which works on Parallels Desktop 8 (later versions of that require the inferior later versions of OS X)?
I use SL on my 2010 Macbook Pro because it has the last Mail interface I can live with - I struggle with remembering things and find scrolling hard to live with - therefore an easily sortable list of emails, with one-per-line listing, allowing many more items per page, is essential. This was dropped on or after Lion in order to make it more like iOS. Furthermore, the Disk Utility on SL is far superior to anything since. The stability and reliability of 10.6.8 is also well understood.
I do not like at all the latest snooping backdoors insisted on by State and Commercial interests, which I consider to be even less secure than old operating systems. These cannot be turned off, are constantly being updated without my knowledge or consent, take away suddenly functionality I rely on and then install most unwanted bloatware and adware, and rely on the Cloud rather than offline storage, meaning that my data can be held to ransom by some corporation somewhere. I never forget or forgive how Google destroyed the Panoramio archive, nor the recent wiping of the Disqus Channels archive.
I use and keep updated as much antivirus software I can lay my hands on, and take the usual precautions about not clicking on dodgy email links. I also turn off my WiFi and router often in an attempt to thwart hackers. I know all too well that SL has not had security updates for many years.
I also run XP through an old version of Parallels Desktop, which fills a number of OS X's shortcomings - my printer likes XP better; XP has a better file management interface, and there are a number of legacy apps that only run on XP. XP has not had any security updates since April 2019, so in a sense it is a little more secure than SL, even though hackers do prefer to do their business through Windows.
My problem right now is the warnings coming up from Facebook, iPlayer and possibly YouTube that they will not support my browser any longer. The latest browser I have found is Firefox 45 ESR, although that has recently started crashing my system, so I had to revert to Firefox 48, which is stable for now. Other browsers such as Roccat and Arctic Fox are older technology. The Google/Opera family will not load on SL, insisting on a poorer later of OS X before they will install. One of my internet banking websites also no longer works on FF48 - coming up with white pages when clicking on links, although it still works on FF53 running through XP. I don't like to hang around XP online for too long when banking. though.
What I am after is a workround that enables me to keep using Facebook, iPlayer and internet banking without exposing me to the horrors of current software and website design upgrades that I find I cannot live with. Or do I need to go back to pen-and-ink and give up on the internet as it closes down around me? Is there some mileage in going down the Linux route? If so, which is the best distro, ideally one which works on Parallels Desktop 8 (later versions of that require the inferior later versions of OS X)?
