Am I interpreting this correctly?
My somewhat recent iPhone 14 won’t be usable on Discourse?
Despite being a 25 year veteran and reading every day, I sure ain’t buying a new phone just for this.
I’m using an iPhone 12 and have not gotten this message so I think you’re fine.
Google Chrome runs on iOS and seems to update without a problem. Have you tried that?
You need a current version of iOS or in OP’s case, MacOS.
M 2 cents: I agree about the small screens on devices & phone. If the iPad has a voice input option, you might be able to speak your replies/posts. I do that often when I’m posting from my phone. Much easier than typing.
I Googled it, and aside from utility/billing type apps which are often compatible all the way back to iOS 12, it’s pretty standard for the oldest supported iOS version on most apps to be 15, with support for that version ending this year.
You’d need to go all the way back to an iPhone 6 to get to a version that cannot upgrade to 16, so…
That jibes with my experience.
A few years ago, I had an older, employer-issued Macbook, which was running an older version of the MacOS (in part because my employer’s IT department had not yet rolled out the then-current MacOS to employees).
That Mac had Chrome set for automatic updates, but at some point, I started getting messages that Chrome could no longer be updated, as newer versions of Chrome weren’t compatible with that old MacOS.
And the answer is: I did NOT interpret it correctly; I was thinking they were referring to model, not iOS version. I’m good.
OP, can you upgrade to macOS 10.14 Mojave (just one version ahead of yours, and should support your Mac Mini: macOS Mojave Compatible Macs and System Requirements: EveryMac.com)? It should be available on the App Store: macOS Mojave on the Mac App Store
If so, that would let you run the alternative browser Orion: Orion Browser by Kagi (@MacDoc you can give it a try too)
That is made by the indie search engine company Kagi, and uses the Webkit renderer (same as Safari). Unlike Safari, it is not pegged to a particular macOS version (besides needing at least 10.14) and should be able to run Discourse and other modern sites without issue.
Webkit is the underlying engine that powers all the world’s iPhones, so it’s a very mature and stable engine. The benefit to you is that it doesn’t move as quickly as the Chromium/Chrome/Blink or Firefox/Gecko projects, which means the updates shouldn’t be as frequent. Both Safari and Orion (along with all browsers on the iPhone) are just “wrappers” over Webkit, so web pages that work fine on your iPad should work fine in Orion too.
Other browsers like Brave, Edge, Opera, etc. are still just Chromium/Blink based, meaning they are subject to Google’s relentless pace of upgrades. There are a few Firefox/Blink derivatives too, but they are subject to Mozilla’s whims. Webkit is your safer choice for something that will support older systems for longer (though still not forever).
It’s worth a shot if you can upgrade just one more version to 10.14.
And Kagi is a cool company to support 
Was enormously popular. Today, not so much.
That isn’t a “modern browser”. Windows 7 isn’t a modern operating system.
Griping about this is like griping that your old tube TV doesn’t handle digital TV.
They’re reducing tech debt, most likely. By moving to up to date development tools and developing for modern operating systems and browsers, and most importantly limiting backward compatibility, they’re reducing the amount of effort and support they have to deal with, and all the bullshit involved with maintaining that backward compatibility.
And it makes sense. Only a few recalcitrant luddites are still using Win 7 or anything like that.
Apple is from what I understand, kind of notorious for this sort of thing, and in their case, I’m sure it’s a sort of serendipitous thing akin to planned obsolescence. They stay up to date, they don’t have to support all sorts of old crap, and they push their user base to buy new phones.
Microsoft isn’t so diligent, but they do it too.
The fact of the matter is that in the modern world, you can’t expect a 10+ year old computer to continue to function and be supported. Seven years is about the limit of that expectation- that’s when in my experience, stuff starts to stop being compatible, and so forth.
I’m guessing you’d have shaken your buggy whip at the new-fangled motorcars as they zoomed by on the road, spooking your horses… in 1930.
If you are dedicated to running old software there are heavy handed ways to get modern browsers running on Win7. For example you can fire up:
- a Virtual Machine which runs
- a resource lightweight OS containing
- a modern (discourse compatible) internet browser.
I personally think it would be more advantageous/safer to run:
- a modern OS on your bare-metal computer, and then have
- a VM running Win7 in case you want to access
- any old/outdated/abandoned software
…but I’m not your mum. You do you.
@wolfpup
As of right now both Opera & Supermium are still working with Windows 7. I would say Opera is less secure than the bigger browsers, but if you’re on an old Operating System, you’re taking risks anyway.
It is free, so try Opera and see if it works with Discourse.
@thorny_locust
For Mac users, maybe try downloading the Discourse App from the Apple Store? That is the best I can suggest.
Maybe. I’ll have to look into that. If so, I don’t know whether that might also fix my mail – Frontier handed me to Yahoo and Yahoo then added bells and whistles with the result that Yahoo no longer works with my Mac Mail and I have to use their website version, which I hate, and which they recently made even worse.
But I suspect it won’t as Mac Mail isn’t working with Yahoo on the (fully updated) iPad either.
And I’m kind of afraid to update the Mini for fear of breaking something I count on being able to use; and also because my connection is crawlingly slow and also erratic so updating an OS takes forever and may well interrupt part way. But I suspect that I ought to try it.
This. Discourse is basically screwing me (and others) over in order to do stuff that is entirely unnecessary for the purposes of this board, or of any board like it; despite its purpose being to host such boards.
I’m not sure about Discourse specifically, but many software products are built from external components. These external components will eventually drop support for older operating systems and browsers. This change could have nothing to do with the Discourse code base itself. It could be because something like the latest version of an external HTML renderer library used by Discourse needs new features and no longer supports older browsers.
It should be in the View menu → Show Bookmarks Bar.
You can see all your bookmarks (and edit them) from the Bookmarks menu → Show Bookmarks. That is their editor.
If you have bookmarks imported from other browsers, they might be in a different subfolder. You can drag those into Orion’s bookmark toolbar if you want them available there.
If you didn’t import the bookmarks when you first started Orion, you can do so manually: Importing Data From Other Browsers | Kagi's Docs
It is a new browser, still in public beta, and yes, there will be some UI bugs here and there. It’s not something I would recommend for general everyday use yet, but in your specific case and the OP’s, I think it is a better choice than using a completely outdated browser that won’t support modern websites (like legacy Firefox ESR).
What we call a web “browser” (like Orion) is a UI wrapper around the underlying rendering engine (in this case Webkit), and it is that rendering engine that ultimately determines a particular site or web app will work correctly.
So even if Orion has some minor quirks, if you can get used to them, that should let you use modern websites with fewer issues because the underlying Webkit is the same (or very similar to) the latest Safari’s — which you otherwise wouldn’t be able to get without a new Mac and the latest macOS version.
So if you’re stuck on an old computer and old OS, this may be a good choice just because your options are otherwise limited. On a newer computer, no reason (yet) to use that over mainline, updated Firefox. On an older computer, Orion is one of the very few browsers you can still run that has a modern rendering engine, so it’s better than nothing. (And hopefully it’ll get better over time!)a
I don’t think that will work on older Macs:
Requires macOS 11.0 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later.
Too bad 
I think this is one of those situations where you just have to weigh multiple bad options and decide which is the least of all evils You’re stuck on an old browser and OS on an old computer, and more and more things will continue to break over time.
That’s just the sad reality of the tech world we live in, where most of these companies are heavily investor-driven and trying to optimize for profit, like any business. That sometimes means making sacrifices to their least profitable users, often those who are on older computers that take more work to support The web world moves fast, too fast I’d say, and people will only get increasingly left behind… sigh.
It’s annoying, for sure, but what can ya do? Maybe after the passport you can save enough money to get a new (used) M1 Mac Mini? You can find them for $300ish on eBay, which is still a lot of money, but it would be a huge, huge upgrade over your existing machine and buy you a few more years at least.
I am using a MacBookAir from mid-2012 running 10.15.7.
Chrome will no longer update on this computer since about 6 months ago. My Chrome version is 128.0.6613.138 which is above the minimum Chrome version listed in the link (v119 is required).
So far I have not received anything on Discourse about being kicked off, so I think I’m safe for now.
I do not have FireFox, so I can’t make any suggestions about that.
Since Chrome no longer updates, I only use this computer for browsing message boards and news. I do not use it for anything related to real money.
Based on someone else previously having suggested Supermium, I very cautiously installed it this morning on a non-essential laptop running 64-bit Windows 7, same as my main desktop.
Well, well, very interesting! It seems lightweight, installed very quickly, no complaints from my enterprise-grade anti-malware, and it connects with the SDMB with no “obsolete browser” warning message like I’m now getting from all other browsers on Win7. I logged in to the Dope, and everything looks just as it should! As mentioned before, this is a fork of a pretty standard baseline Chromium platform, but compatible with older operating systems.
So, a tentative yay!! This may be my salvation for continuing to use Windows 7 for a while yet! 
Tonight we’re gonna party like it’s 1699!
Let’s raise a barn to celebrate!
There are ways to coerce older Macs to install a newer OS.
I might be able to help you though this if you are interested.