Snow Leopard Support Killed, 1 In 5 Macs Left Vulnerable

Mac OS X 10.6, better known as Snow Leopard, is almost four and a half years old. The last security update for this iteration was released back in September 2013. It was left out in the update released in December, as well as in the one released day before yesterday. Most recent OS X update brings fixes for OS X 10.7, 10.8 and 10.9, but leaves out Snow Leopard. While Apple doesn’t usually spell out support policies, it seems that the company has pretty much killed support for Snow Leopard.

Even though Snow Leopard runs on 19 percent of all Macs out there, it is unlikely that Apple will have a change of heart. Its decision to drop support for the outdated firmware probably stems from its accelerated development release schedules for OS X, as annual upgrades are now promised. Snow Leopard users seem to be Apple’s equivalent of Windows XP users, people who’re not willing to give up on their operating system because it works just fine for them and they see no reason to switch.

Though with no more security fixes coming in, the end of support for Snow Leopard leaves 1 in 5 Macs prone to attacks as crucial vulnerabilities remain unpatched. In the most recent OS X update Apple has patched a critical SSL encryption bug that no one knows existing for how long on both iOS and Mac. No comment from Apple on this report.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Apple, Computers
Tags: os x mavericks, snow leopard