Magento 2 : can I upgrade jQuery versions?

Question

I opened the developer console and executed jQuery.fn.jquery and I get 1.12.4.

Why does Magento 2 uses the old version even though the latest version is 3.6.0?

I am running a pagespeed report on google page speed insights. It says: Includes front-end JavaScript libraries with known security vulnerabilities

Can I upgrade jQuery version within Magento 2 to get rid of this? Also what other packages do I need to upgrade along with jQuery?

What are the pros/cons of upgrading?

Answer 1

If you are developing the site now consider to upgrade Magento to the last version (2.4.5) that include also the last jquery version.

If you're already in production technically it's not difficult to update jquery but you should also do a compatibility check of the whole frontend.

You can place your jquery file in: [Your_theme_folder]/web/jquery.js

From my experience I would avoid updating jquery if there really is no reason