Then I downloaded Geekbench again, after the initial time of Spotlight indexing was finished, and ran another series of tests. To find out what model and year Mac you have go to the Apple menu > About this Mac.After obtaining the Geekbench 4 results for Sierra, I downloaded and performed a clean install of macOS High Sierra. High Sierra will get security patches until fall of 2020, and Sierra until the fall of 2019.

Mojave will receive security patches until the fall of 2021. Google Chrome only maintains support about one year after.Īs an alternative to completely retiring the computer, you can install an alternate OS such as Linux, but the specifics of that are far more than I could cover in this post.įor most people, I would suggest upgrading to macOS Mojave if your Mac supports it. Firefox is a good alternative because they often support system software for two years longer than Apple does.

You should at the very least stop using Safari since that’s communicating directly with the internet and is no longer going to get updated. If you insist on keeping an obsolete computer please be careful and be aware of the risks. And at some point shortly after that software developers will stop making their software compatible which you’ll first notice means your web browser will stop functioning properly on the internet. As security holes are found, Apple will no longer patch El Capitan. If you have a computer running El Capitan still I highly recommend you upgrade to a newer version if possible, or retire your computer if it cannot be upgraded. You then have to choose to get it from the Mac App Store. Usually it will offer to upgrade you to a new version once, but if you dismiss the offer to upgrade it doesn’t persist.

Normally auto-update only installs updates for your current software. Don’t assume that you’re on the latest version because your computer automatically updates itself. Not sure what version you are running? Here’s how to find out. The good news though, is that if you have a compatible computer software upgrades from Apple are free. So that means Mojave, High Sierra, and Sierra. Apply historically only patches software for the current software plus two versions prior. With yesterday’s software updates El Capitan fell off the security patch bandwagon, as expected.

El capitan vs sierra computer