Firefox Snow Leopard

Starting with Firefox version 49, Firefox requires Mac OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) or higher. Visit this Apple Support page to find your Mac OS version.

Optional: If you want a Snow Leopard compatible browser that is mostly adequate for use on the modern web (which Safari 5.1 is not), Arctic Fox is a Firefox derivative that is current as of March 2020. Snow Leopard is een andere naam voor Mac OS X.6, de opvolger van Leopard, of OS X.5. Vandaag is er geen geldige reden om nog steeds gebruik Firefox 3.5.7 met Snow Leopard. Firefox 3.5 werd uitgebracht in juni 2009 toen van Leopard op het huidige besturingssysteem beschikbaar van Apple. The snow leopard libsqlite is going to be incompatible with Firefox code in subtle and important ways. Removing the local copy is definitely the wrong solution and should not be recommended! We should rename our libsqlite, but that's hard partly because of the external NSS dependency on it.

If you're using an outdated version of Firefox on Mac OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) or earlier, the only way you can update Firefox to a secure version is to upgrade your Mac OS to a version that Apple supports. Visit this Apple Support page to learn more about upgrading your Mac.

Note: If you have Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) or 10.6 (Snow Leopard), you will need to download OS X El Capitan before you can upgrade to the latest Mac OS.

While insecure versions of Firefox will continue to work on OS X 10.8 and earlier, using an up-to-date version of Firefox on a supported version of Mac OS will provide you with the best and safest user experience.

On August 2, 2016, Firefox 48.0 was released. It is scheduled to be replaced by Firefox 49.0 on September 13, 2016. At that point, Mac users using OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, 10.7 Lion, and 10.8 Mountain Lion will be left behind by the current versions of Firefox. It will be a sad day, as Firefox is the last major browser to support Mac OS X 10.6 through 10.8.

But it’s not all bad news. Firefox has given us Mac support longer than Google’s Chrome browser, which left us behind in April 2016. And in comparison to Apple’s Safari browser, Chrome and Firefox have been downright generous. Safari 5.1.10 was the last version for OS X 10.6, and that arrived on September 12, 2013. Safari 6.1.6, the final revision for OS X 10.7, was unleashed on August 13, 2014, and 6.2.8, the last version for OS X 10.8, a year later on August 13, 2015.

Firefox 48 Snow Leopard

Chrome gave Snow Leopard users 2-1/2 years more support than Apple did, Lion users 20 months more, and Mountain Lion 8 months. When Firefox 49.0 arrives, Snow Leopard users will have had 3 years more support by Firefox than Safari gave them. Lion users, 25 months, and Mountain Lion holdouts, 13 months.

Outdated Does Not Mean Obsolete

Fear mongers will insist on running the latest version of browser on a fully up-to-date operating system with the belief that anything else puts you at risk. The truth is, there are unknown risks in the latest software. You can never be 100% secure.

However, you can be very productive with older operating systems, applications, and browsers. Just because some new piece of software requires a newer OS version is no reason to upgrade – unless it gives you a feature you really need to have. I have been happily working with OS X 10.6 on my 2007 Mac mini for years. I use Safari, Chrome, and Firefox daily on it, and only one of them is current – and not for much longer.

Then again, OS X Snow Leopard itself is far from current, yet it allows me to run lots of software and be very productive. I don’t find it limiting at all to use outdated software with an outdated operating system on a discontinued computer that will never run OS X 10.8 or newer. It’s good enough for what I need it to do.

Honestly, that’s the whole point of Low End Mac. You can be productive even if you can’t run the latest Mac OS and browser. After all, there was a time when they had nothing newer to use, and they were productive then.