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Firefox Is Going 64-Bit: What You Need To Know

An anonymous reader writes "Firefox product manager Asa Dotzler determined that figuring out the 64-bit confusion surrounding Firefox it will be 'near the top' of his to-do list this summer and fall. One could conclude that Mozilla has no idea at this point what people are expecting from a 64-bit version of Firefox, so Dotzler is asking for some feedback. More speed? More security? What about plug-in availability? All of the above, please."

10 of 364 comments (clear)

  1. 64-bit is a misfeature by chrylis · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Perhaps if they instead focused on fixing the memory leaks, pushing out 64-bit builds wouldn't be so pressing an issue?

    1. Re:64-bit is a misfeature by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      64-bit is important because an increasing number of operating systems are no longer shipping 32-bit libraries by default, and on the ones that are, most apps are 64-bit so they may not be swapped in. On this machine, only four of the apps that I'm running are 32-bit - and two of those are just because I'm running really old versions and haven't bothered to upgrade (they're open source and 32-bit clean). With these running, I have a lot of libraries loaded twice, once for them and once for every other application. A couple of years ago, the balance was in the other direction - a few 64-bit apps and a lot of 32-bit ones. If FireFox is the only 32-bit app that you're running, then that's a huge amount of 32-bit shared library code that is loaded solely for FireFox's benefit.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  2. Re:Memory! by grub · · Score: 3, Insightful


    Hurray! With 64 bits, Firefox might be able to address all the memory it uses...

    Firefox and the OS will still need ZFS' 128 bit filesystem for the swap space.

    --
    Trolling is a art,
  3. Eh? by jmorris42 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I thought I had been running a 64bit Firefox for years. So I wasn't? Or is this about finally doing a 64-bit Windows build? Probably since Moz Corp is entirely focused on Windows and treats Linux as a red headed stepchild.

    --
    Democrat delenda est
  4. Re:If Mozilla has no idea what to expect by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    (Easy) compatibility with 64-bit plugins and not having to drag along a whole bloody system's worth of 32-bit libraries just to install the browser seem like the most evident reasons...

    What confuses me is why they would be framing an address-length change in terms of additional features. With the specific exception of applications where the implementation of certain features requires easy access to gigantic slabs of memory, there isn't a whole lot of connection between 64-bitness and the feature list.

  5. History repeats by Wonko+the+Sane · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This sounds like like the, "Why should we rewrite our perfectly good 16 bit applications just because everybody else is jumping on the 32 bit bandwagon" conversations that we went through back in ancient times.

  6. Re:Why ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You're wasting your keyboard away. You'll never get them all and even if you do, they won't listen, understand, or care. Many, including myself, have been telling people for years that it's not just about the bigger address space. The all knowing Internet has decided we don't need a 64-bit address space and consequently all other features that come with a 64-bit processor are irrelevant.

    Also, rest assured that even if Firefox became the most memory efficient browser in existence it would not matter. Once the Internet makes up its mind, you cannot change it by bringing up stupid things like facts.

    Take your extra registers, SSE, shared libraries, processor tuning and shove it. The Internet has spoken.

    Note to moderators: There is no +1 sarcastic, so you have no choice but to mod this insightful. No? Ok just mod parent up.

  7. Re:App idea that is directly related to this! by RsG · · Score: 3, Insightful

    He's a troll. Probably not one with an agenda, beyond provoking nerd rage. Consider:

    1. He posts alt-med stuff on slashdot, a "news for nerds" site. There are only a few things more likely to provoke a flamewar than peddling quackery to rationalists. Perhaps he felt creationism or microsoft trolls would be too obvious?

    2. He only ever posts about the one issue. He'll shoehorn chiropractic crap into any discussion. Including a story about a new version of an old browser. This is not the behaviour of a regular poster; even the genuine alt-med believers and conspiracy theorists post about other topics.

    3. He hasn't quit, despite negative karma. Every post he makes spawns flamewars. A genuine idiot would feel unwelcome, give up and leave. A troll on the other hand, revels in the flamewars.

    So, he's a troll. One here purely to start trouble. He's probably laughing at every idiot who feeds him by screaming "QUACK!"

    --
    Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
  8. Re:App idea that is directly related to this! by TheVelvetFlamebait · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I take exception to your post. I know plenty of people in the medical profession. Most of them are good, honest people, who have never once mislead me on any count. They're not taking backhanders from Big Pharma.

    My father is currently a practising psychiatrist, who is also doing a significant amount of research into his favourite psychiatric technique, which revolves around a one-on-one therapy to treat the roots of the problems (typically traumatic experiences). It involves little to no drugs, because it doesn't treat problems merely as a chemical imbalance.

    I also take exception because I know people practising alternative medicine, and not one of them is as moronic as your post makes you sound.

    --
    You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
  9. Re:App idea that is directly related to this! by growse · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Chiropractic has done all of this and more. Don't just take my word for it, ask ANY Chiropractor and they will tell you the same thing. Look at Chiro videos on YouTube, they have lots of Thumbs Up from other Chiros.

    Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a brand new research technique!! Forget about all that time-wasting and expensive business of double-blinded randomized trials, and the complex process of producing 'evidence', lets just put videos of untested treatments on Youtube and see how many thumbs up votes they get. We could combine this revolutionary technique with that other ideal indicator of treatment performance called 'Just asking people'. Why we've bothered with complex trials for all these years is a true mystery.

    Brilliant!

    --
    There is nothing interesting going on at my blog