Websites and browser compatibility (or lack of!)

[RogerS]

We have two elderly iMacs...10 and 9 years old respectively and both have the latest versions of OSX that they can have. Ditto some browsers. We are now finding it harder to use some websites and end up trying this browser with Site A and another browser with Site B.

I accept that a lot of this is down to the antiquity of our browsers but before we flash the (ever-dwindling) cash to get new ones to see us out, does the latest version of OSX and/or browsers still have problems with some websites ?

TIA

 

[Geoff_S]

We have two elderly iMacs...10 and 9 years old respectively and both have the latest versions of OSX that they can have. Ditto some browsers. We are now finding it harder to use some websites and end up trying this browser with Site A and another browser with Site B.

I accept that a lot of this is down to the antiquity of our browsers but before we flash the (ever-dwindling) cash to get new ones to see us out, does the latest version of OSX and/or browsers still have problems with some websites ?

TIA

Hi Roger

Out iMac is 7 years old and running the latest OSX version Catalina 10.15.4. The only browser we ever use is Safari currently 13.1

No problems, as such.

But what I have noticed is a quite frequent slowing down of a lot of websites recently, but this is to be expected in the current times. Everyone and their dog is on the internet at the moment, work and pleasure. The problems may well be the capacity of the servers on specific websites, and as I say the number of people accessing those servers.

So I would suggest waiting until this COVID-19 business eases and people are starting to get back to work.

Cheers

 

[RogerS]

Hi Geoff

Many thanks for the reply. It's good to know that Catalina and Safari (latest version) work OK>

It's not a question of slow internet speed/overloaded servers as it was happening long before Covid-19.

 

[SammyQ]

Roger, I know b.a.cubed about Macs, but I remember giving our laptops a good digital cleanout of duplicate files, caches, unused programs, yada yada. The difference in speed afterwards is quite astonishing. Can you do the same for your iWotsits?

Sam

 

[nev]

Older OS X (Pre mountain lion?) can only run an old version of safari and other browsers that cannot be updated to keep up with modern formats of web pages, so for browsing the net are becoming pretty much useless, which is unfortunate because the rest of the computer is perfectly adequate for running day to day office tasks etc. (just like Windows and Vista et al)

So yes, any new Mac using safari or any other browser works perfectly well with current and foreseeable future web browsing.
Apple wouldn't sell many computers otherwise.

 

[RogerS]

Roger, I know b.a.cubed about Macs, but I remember giving our laptops a good digital cleanout of duplicate files, caches, unused programs, yada yada. The difference in speed afterwards is quite astonishing. Can you do the same for your iWotsits?

Sam

I could Sam but that sounds more like a heavily fragmented disk to me TBH. Macs are pretty good at managing fragmentation. It's definitely browser related, I think

 

[RogerS]

Older OS X (Pre mountain lion?) can only run an old version of safari and other browsers that cannot be updated to keep up with modern formats of web pages, so for browsing the net are becoming pretty much useless, which is unfortunate because the rest of the computer is perfectly adequate for running day to day office tasks etc. (just like Windows and Vista et al)

I'm on Catalina and the Missus is on Mavericks IIRC but your point is well made and confirms what I've been thinking

Apple wouldn't sell many computers otherwise.

LOL...ain't that the truth ! Mind you, ten years ain't bad going and performance speed-wise is still pretty much on a par with what it was when we bought it...even with all the upgrading to newer versions of OSX. Now all I've got to do is convince her that I really, really, really need a 27" screen and an SSD drive .

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Old kit always benefits from Linux. I'm not a Mac user, but have a look at https://www.maketecheasier.com/best-lin ... mac-users/

Given that OSX is based on Linux anyway, what could possibly go wrong? Worth a try, and boot from a disk/USB stick and try before you buy - won't need to make any changes or install anything to see if it makes a difference. It's not as if you have anything else to do at the moment...;-)

 

[RogerS]

Old kit always benefits from Linux. I'm not a Mac user, but have a look at https://www.maketecheasier.com/best-lin ... mac-users/

Given that OSX is based on Linux anyway, what could possibly go wrong? Worth a try, and boot from a disk/USB stick and try before you buy - won't need to make any changes or install anything to see if it makes a difference. It's not as if you have anything else to do at the moment...;-)

Wrong. OSX is based on Unix.

It is nothing at all to do with the OS and besides I have better things to do with my life. My days of fiddling about getting down an dirty with machine code are long gone...OK..I know you're not talking machine code but the point is moot.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Old kit always benefits from Linux. I'm not a Mac user, but have a look at https://www.maketecheasier.com/best-lin ... mac-users/

Given that OSX is based on Linux anyway, what could possibly go wrong? Worth a try, and boot from a disk/USB stick and try before you buy - won't need to make any changes or install anything to see if it makes a difference. It's not as if you have anything else to do at the moment...;-)

Wrong. OSX is based on Unix.

I stand corrected. Very corrected indeed.

It is nothing at all to do with the OS and besides I have better things to do with my life. My days of fiddling about getting down an dirty with machine code are long gone...OK..I know you're not talking machine code but the point is moot.

Burn a dvd, boot the machine, and run the OS from the disk. It will work out of the box and you will have an up-to-date, current browser. If you like it, keep it. If you don't, total cost would be the dvd and about 30 minutes of your day. Use a usb stick and it won't even cost you that (assuming your ancient kit can boot from a stick).

I don't know what you are expecting from Linux, but it will give you a graphical interface just like Windows or OSX; the difference is it will be current and have regular updates, unlike your current OS. You never need to use any command line interface, unless you want to. It's all very modern and "normal". No need for punched hole card programming and dumb terminals, I promise. It even supports a mouse!

You say it's not an OS problem, but I think it is exactly that - your OS is no longer being supported for commercial reasons, so why not find one that will be current?

Just trying to help - it's entirely up to you.

 

[RogerS]

I take your point but a very quick Google suggests that it's not as 'simple' as all that. For example, here.

So I'll not be going down that route any time soon. Life is too short.

 

[ScaredyCat]

Burn a dvd, boot the machine, and run the OS from the disk.

Nobody needs to be burning DVDs


.

 

[Padster]

Hi, I curious about the difficulties you are having admittedly I'm on a 17" MBP late 2011 but the latest OSX I can run is High Sierra. I'm an apple fanboy I guess some would say but I have few issues if any my default browser is safari.

I looked into replacing my MBP and really don't need a laptop for personal use anymore so looked at an iMac but I got talking with one of the Genius bar guys in store and for what I don't use my iPad for it worked out I didn't need an a new machine...

Why am I telling you all this well after my chat with guy It was just a memory upgrade and swapping the HDD for an SDD and my machine flies compared to my work laptop (new & running Win10) with few issues and being Apple it was very easy to replace the HDD there's even a utility to do it (just google) - and the kit was easily available and affordable from the net as advised by the guy although I used a reputable good quality known vendor.

HTH.

 

[RogerS]

I think that the CPU architecture has a lot to do with this and something that can't be changed. So upgrading to an SSD wouldn't really help in this instance. But I take your point.

Digressing ever so slightly, on the subject of hard drives I thoroughly recommend buying a copy of Scannerz. It runs diagnostics on your hard drive and compares with previous results. Gives a very good indication as to whether or not the drive is starting to get unhappy.

And don't waste your money buying CleanMyMac.

 

[DrPhill]

I take your point but a very quick Google suggests that it's not as 'simple' as all that. For example, here.

So I'll not be going down that route any time soon. Life is too short.

Hi Roger, if I made you a bootable USB would you want to try it? I have a Mac, but I prefer linux. Mac can be a pain because Apple want to keep their walled garden safe (from escapees as well). I think that the Mac boot loader only recognises some disk partitioning schemes - and the eaiest way to create these is on a Mac. It can be done - I have read the articles but I have never done it. It would be a fun thing to try if I knew it would be used.

So, are you game? If so do you have a preferred linux distro? I am familiar with Ubuntu & Mint. Others might throw me a little.

Here is what I would do: though the article suggests that booting from and external cd is simpler: https://www.howtogeek.com/213396/how-to ... -your-mac/

 

[DrPhill]

Alternately you can use bootcamp to split your hard drive and install windows on the second partition. I have that on my Mac so I can work from home.

 

[RogerS]

I take your point but a very quick Google suggests that it's not as 'simple' as all that. For example, here.

So I'll not be going down that route any time soon. Life is too short.

Hi Roger, if I made you a bootable USB would you want to try it? I have a Mac, but I prefer linux. Mac can be a pain because Apple want to keep their walled garden safe (from escapees as well). I think that the Mac boot loader only recognises some disk partitioning schemes - and the eaiest way to create these is on a Mac. It can be done - I have read the articles but I have never done it. It would be a fun thing to try if I knew it would be used.

So, are you game? If so do you have a preferred linux distro? I am familiar with Ubuntu & Mint. Others might throw me a little.

Here is what I would do: though the article suggests that booting from and external cd is simpler: https://www.howtogeek.com/213396/how-to ... -your-mac/

That would be very kind of you and I'd like to take you up on that offer, Phill. I don't mind which flavour ! I'll PM you my address.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Hi Roger,

I think Mac OS is (was) based on Berkley (BSD) which is similar to Linux, (both were intended for Intel processors), but not quite the "big" Unixes of old.

The DC uses Safari on her (last year's model) iPad, and I find it slow and clunky. That said, there are a number of sites out there that use an extreme amount of cookies, but worse, include "iframes" and similar which present stuff from other web sites entirely. Examples include many news sites especially (those "sponsored" sections, actual adverts, and so on). All those really hit page load times badly, and depending on the page rendering going on, you may be hanging about waiting for one obscure page element to turn up, when the rest of the page arrived a while back - if you see what I mean. It's the modern curse of advertising-driven "free" content.

I'd suggest an experiment, before digging into Linux (much as I love it myself): try using Firefox (or Google Chrome) instead of Safari, to see if it makes a difference. Both are pretty quick nowadays, and a useful comparison.

You may find (and I suspect), it's modern sub-optimal web page design that's the big nuisance.

I'd also check the speed of connection to the specific sites you are finding to be slow: open a terminal window and use ping to check the round trip time (unlike a PC, which runs for a bit and times out, I think the ping of MacOS will repeat forever until you ctrl-C to stop it - same on most Unixes and linux). This won't tell you a huge amount, but if you have a fast site and a problem one, you might see an obvious difference. This is arguably more realistic than running Ookla speed tests or similar, as you are checking a server you actually use.

Note that streaming services, such as Netflix or Amazon Prime Video should do a lot of buffering, and can reduce their bandwidth requirements automatically if connections are poor. Things have to be pretty rough before the picture starts to stutter, etc. Unless you insist on 4k pic quality, the video streams they use should be well within the capabilities of most ADSL connections, and in any case the server loading will be the biggest factor at the moment. Point being: don't regard them as a definitive guide either way.

HTH, E.

 

[DrPhill]

The DC uses Safari on her (last year's model) iPad, and I find it slow and clunky.

IIRC iOS requires all web browsing to be done on the built-in web engine so all browsers will be using the same core code. What they decorate it with is another matter.......

Agree about the possible causes, but it is easy enough to burn a couple of cds, one for Mint and one for Ubuntu.