Firefox takes walk down 64-bit Windows street Mozilla has created a pre-release 64-bit version of Firefox for Windows for hardcore coders to test-drive. The open source browser maker confirmed on Friday that it had begun pushing out automated pre-release builds of a 64-bit flavoured Firefox for developers to download and play with. “The purpose of automating these pre- …
The 64bit builds benchmark significantly slower than the 32bit builds of Firefox, quite simply because web browsers can't really take advantage of the advantage that 64bit-ness brings, they DO however suffer the downsides of 64bit-ness (Swollen pointers, more memory consumption, larger binaries etc).
Clearly anyone that really cares about performance, wouldn't be using Firefoxc anyway, they would be using Opera (which have just released 10.60, which moves even further ahead of even Chrome in the benchmark stakes), with even more to come in 10.60 beta.
http://my.opera.com/ODIN/blog/opera-10-60-alpha
If your OS is 64-bit and you run a 32-bit application, all the API calls have to be thunked to their 64-bit equivalents. The WOW64 subsystem in Windows is quite robust but even so I imagine that in a graphics & text intensive application like Firefox that this could have an effect. Also, if Firefox were the only 32 bit app you were using on the system, then you incur a memory overhead of loading up the thunk DLLs.
On the other hand, the instructions and memory requirements for 64-bit apps are higher. This may mean that some internal assumptions that Firefox may make such as the amount of memory to reserve for cache, the amount of memory to reserve in certain objects like auto strings may be incorrect for the architecture. Other things like the JS to C++ marshalling assembly code might be non-optimal. These sorts of things could require a lot of tuning before comparing versions. Even for comparison purposes you might need to allow more memory to fairly compare a 64-bit apps to its 32-bit version.
Additionally Firefox has to decide what to do with 32-bit plugins and 32-bit add-ons. Does it support them or not. If not, then that limits the reasons for using 64-bit and also drags up the issue of WOW64 again.
So while I wouldn't say a 64-bit firefox would scream ahead of the 32-bit counterpart, it may provide a modest boost if you have enough memory to run it and once the kinks have been ironed out.
Is utter garbage, they seem to have done the minimum amount of work so they can say "We're the first to market with a 64Bit browser on Windows". Never mind the fact it's horribly incompatible, horribly insecure with the Active-X controls it does actually support, and just plain horrible to use.
"It’s unsurprising to see Mozilla developing its browser to work with 64-bit micro-processing technology, given that Microsoft has moved into that space with its Windows 7 operating system. But it’s also playing catch-up with its rivals in the web surfing game."
*BZZT*
Actually, MS released IE 6 on the 64bit version of Windows XP in both 32bit and 64bit flavours. MS aren't new to the 64bit browser game.
...it doesn't alter the fact that 64-bit IE is awful. I'd happily use it for IE-specific sites if it was a fully-rounded browser, but the fact is that it's missing support for de facto web features. Pointless and does nothing but reinforce the view that 64-bit IE is an after-thought.
Paris, because MS just aren't trying.
that although MS has been playing in the 64-bit browser realm for longer than most, it has been playing in the sense of two 5-year olds sharing their toys (and in fact, I owe an apology to the five year olds who share their toys better than MS plays in the 64-bit space, but there was no closer comparison) than in the sense of professional sports teams competing for a championship title. 64-bit IE is so bad the default IE task bar icon links to the 32-bit version on Vista instead of the 64-bit version. Or at least it did when I bought my copy. This caused no end of confusion when trying to run the company SSL VPN connection at the time.
Just install FlashBlock add on in FireFox. That way you have the choice to run some useless advert / flashing media thingy or just browse in peace.
...back to the topic.
A 64 bit FF scares me - the 32 bit one chews up enough resources without giving it the option of taking even more... still nicer and safer to use than IE though.
...the news that an unofficial 64-bit build of Firefox has been around for a while now:
http://www.mozilla-x86-64.com/
As they're unofficial builds, they cannot bear the Mozilla Firefox trademark but that does not stop them from working just fine. I've been using them on the x86-64 build of XP Pro without incident*. Although the main page would seem to suggest that only version 3.0.7 is available, drilling down reveals that 3.6 should be downloadable as well.
* other than Flush not working because there is no Win64 version...not that I'm sure this is a great loss...
Operafans, FF may need extensions to make it more useable, but..
(and I hope Opera ASA is watching, to see why this
former BIG operafan is ******** off at them)
speeddial - far more active - groups, naming, etc...
session manager - far more versatile than opera's very basic one....
more for tooltips, progressbar, lots of things that opera has forgotten to develop more... what use is speed, when functions & useability lacks so much???
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