Re: Is OS X 10.3 any less secure than later versions of OS X?
- From: Noon <noon@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:05:18 +0000
On Thu, 29 Jan 2009 09:14:44 +1300, dempson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (David
Empson) wrote:
Michael Kallweitt <M.Kallweitt@xxxxxx> wrote:
Noon wrote:
I have a 5 year old or so iMac (iLamp type) with 10.3 installed, which
currently I don't use. I've offered it to a friend, but he's concerned
that it's not as secure as the later versions of OS X, and this might
be make the system vulnerable when he does internet banking.
10.3 (Panther) isn't more vulnerable than 10.5. You should be aware however,
that rather sooner than later Apple will stop issuing bug- and securty fixes
for newly detected holes in the system. From that day on you may have a
security problem.
I'll echo what David Sankey said - Apple stopped releasing security
updates for 10.3 in late 2007. They stopped releasing QuickTime and
iTunes updates for 10.3 about mid 2008. Everything Apple has released
since then requires at least 10.4 (and 10.5 in some cases).
They aren't even looking at 10.3 any more to see if any newly discovered
security problems in later versions might affect 10.3, so there is an
increasing risk of security issues if you stay with 10.3.
On the other hand, the likelihood of someone actually trying to exploit
a security hole in 10.3 may become smaller over time, because of the
relatively small number of Mac users who are still running it. The main
risk is likely to be a common problem which affects multiple platforms
and OS versions - you could have no protection against this.
I don't see a problem - I'd reinstall 10.3 and fully update it before
he used it, and put Firefox on it if that'd make any difference.
You can install Firefox 2.x, but you won't get Firefox 3 for Panther. Apart
from security issues the availability of current software might be another
reason for your friend to upgrade his OS to Leopard, or even to Snow Leo when
it's available.
If it is an iMac G4, then it almost certainly won't run Snow Leopard
(which is unlikely to support PowerPC Macs).
It may be able to run Leopard (10.5), as long as it is at least 867 MHz
(and a slower model could install it via a minor hack), and it has
enough memory and hard drive space. Any iMac G4 can officially run Tiger
(10.4).
Thanks for the help everyone - I'll pass what you say onto him and he
can decide if he wants to pay for an upgrade to the OS. I suppose when
the latset version of OS X appears then it may be the writing on the
wall for 10.4 updates too.
10.4 appears to be available on ebay for under £20, presumably as a
result of 10.5 upgrades.
.
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