Is Google Chrome a good choice for my 2012 MacBook Pro?

[tpcollins]

I’m at my system limit of OS Sierra on my mid-2012 MacBook Pro.

Some features don’t work in Safari - Youtube, certain Buy it Now options on eBay, etc.

I have Microsoft Edge available that I tole in and out of. I was at the Apple store to get some crap removed off my MacBook and the gal says she has Google Chrome on her Apple laptop as it works best with her college course.

Is this ok to download. Plus I can’t find a good link to download from. Thanks.

 

[nathan_reilly]

maybe update OS Sierra? my 2012 MacBook Pro does everything I want it to and no $$$

also if you want to download chrome, go to www.google.com and type in "chrome" and press enter

 

[randolorian]

Chrome is never a good choice due to privacy risks. If Safari doesn't work with important sites, I would recommend Chromium browsers such as Edge or Brave.

 

[nothingtoseehere]

The current version of Firefox does still work with macOS 10.12 Sierra:

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/97.0/system-requirements/

There is a download link on this site.

 

[Mr_Brightside_@]

Sierra is not the limit of any 2012 MacBook Pro. You can install up to Catalina on your Mac.

 

[KaliYoni]

If privacy is a major concern, Edge is not the best choice. Here's an earlier thread with a discussion of various browsers:

Chrome: are more and more sites requiring it?

It's true Edge sends less information to Google than Google Chrome...but Microsoft has actually made Edge worse for privacy! For instance, here is a comparison of six popular browsers that was done by a Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland) academic: "We measure the connections to backend servers...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[Jack Neill]

Sierra is not the limit of any 2012 MacBook Pro. You can install up to Catalina on your Mac.

Mine is running Big Sur perfectly.

 

[DaKKs]

Mine is running Big Sur perfectly.

+1

Big Sur will run nearly natively on a 2012 macbook pro.

Its not until Monterey that you start to get buggy with serious patching required.

 

[CooperBox]

+1

Big Sur will run nearly natively on a 2012 macbook pro.

Its not until Monterey that you start to get buggy with serious patching required.

I'm aware that they can be patched to run Big Sur, but unsure what 'nearly natively' means.

 

[DaKKs]

I'm aware that they can be patched to run Big Sur, but unsure what 'nearly natively' means.

Apple basically just blacklisted the mid-2012 cMBP from Big Sur. The drivers/kexts are still all there in the OS. So even if you OTA upgrade, it will boot normally even before its patched. SIP is still enabled etc.

On Monterey, there is no longer gpu support, so whenever you OTA upgrade, you have the annoying first start menu you will have to go through without graphics acceleration. You also dont have SIP because you need root patching.

 

[LukeHarrison]

Chrome isn't really a good choice for anything. I went back to Firefox about a year ago across all my devices (other than my iPhone due to lack of native ad-blocking) and haven't looked back.