Reprinted from TidBITS by permission; reuse governed by Creative Commons
license BY-NC-ND 3.0. TidBITS has offered years of thoughtful commentary
on Apple and Internet topics. For free email subscriptions and access to the
entire TidBITS archive, visit http://www.tidbits.com/


   Dropbox Dropping Support for Older Operating Systems

   Michael E. Cohen

   Dropbox has begun notifying users of its service to inform them that as
   of 16 January 2018 it will automatically sign out any computers running
   certain older operating systems. The Mac systems include those running
   OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard through 10.8 Mountain Lion; Windows Vista
   systems will also lose desktop support on that date. Not that it
   matters much, but you won't be able to download or install the Dropbox
   desktop app on those systems after 3 November 2017.

   Although the vast majority of Mac users have updated their Macs to
   more-recent versions of OS X and macOS, some continue to run older
   versions. Many tend to be folk who, like me, have kept a Snow Leopard
   system operating in order to run PowerPC-based applications; Snow
   Leopard was the last Mac OS that supported Rosetta, the PowerPC
   emulator that enabled Intel-based Macs to run such apps (see
   '[1]Rosetta and Lion: Get Over It?,' 23 May 2011).

   This is not to say that such older systems will be completely cut off
   from accessing Dropbox files. Dropbox says that older systems running a
   '[2]supported browser' should still be able to access files through the
   [3]Dropbox Web site. We'll see how long Web browsers compatible with
   those older operating systems remain 'supported.' Dropbox provides more
   information about the end of desktop support for older systems in its
   [4]help center.

   There are undoubtedly many reasons, in addition to the Snow Leopard
   example I mentioned above, for users to stick with older versions of
   Mac operating systems ' the old saw that 'the way to recognize pioneers
   is from the arrows in their backs' comes to mind. Nonetheless, computer
   operating systems, like everything under the sun (and the sun itself),
   have finite lifetimes, and laggards now suffer the same fate as
   pioneers.

   Adam Engst told us '[5]Why You Should Upgrade (On Your Own Terms)' (4
   September 2015), and his advice about upgrading still holds true: 'wait
   if you want, but don't wait too long.' Dropbox's latest news
   illustrates why you don't want to wait too long.

References

   1. http://tidbits.com/article/12191
   2. https://www.dropbox.com/help/desktop-web/system-requirements
   3. http://dropbox.com/
   4. https://www.dropbox.com/help/desktop-web/computer-os-not-supported
   5. http://tidbits.com/article/15906

.