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Mozilla Brings Back Firefox 64-Bit For Windows Nightly Builds
An anonymous reader writes "Last month, Mozilla Engineering Manager Benjamin Smedberg quietly announced that the 64-bit version of Firefox for Windows would never see the light of day. After what he referred to as 'significant negative feedback,' Smedberg has announced he has reviewed that feedback, consulted with his release engineering team, and has decided on a modification to the original plan: Firefox 64-bit for Windows may still never be released, but nightly builds will live another day."
That means Firefox will still be limited to 4 PiB, which I'm sure it'll be reaching by the release of Firefox 12,458 next year. We need a 128-bit version.
The 64 bit branch of FireFox and loved it, it was much faster. Some recent update broke compatibility and I have to do a total uninstall and then reinstall while backing up every Firefox thing elsewhere to restore, since it uses the same profile, etc.
Too lazy to work out the issue, in other words.
But if you have a nice fast 64bit machine, try Wtaerfox, you'll probably love it. Unless it sucks now.
This space available.
What I'd like to see Mozilla bring back is an un-bloated browser.
Waterfox is just Firefox built as 64-bit with some compiler switches and a name change (required by trademark guidelines). It's not a fork and there are no additional bug fixes. It has all the bugs that Firefox does when compiled as a 64-bit binary. You're far better off sticking with Firefox 32-bit which works just fine under 64-bit Windows.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
This will coincide with XP ending support which is the last holdout.
If Mozilla does not want to double the work then just focus on 64-bit. Besides a few Vista users who went to 7, I do not know anyone who uses the 32-bit version. Usually they tell me some driver or piece of software is not compatible. Most cases running it in XP mode is better nowdays and by 2014 that hardware will very old!
Maybe release the long term version on that day as the last 32 bit version for 1 year? By 2015 no one should be running 32 bit XP software or operating systems anymore. I mean enough is enough!
http://saveie6.com/
Too bad many of my clients have Cisco connect which only works with java 1.4.2 and IE 6/7 or some $1,000,0000 ERP abomination-ware tied to Oracle financials that only work on Java 1.4.2, not java 1.4.1, not java 1.4.3, but java 1.4.2.
These machines need to keep being reimaged from infections and as a result can't leave XP or IE 7 behind. Sometimes Firefox works believe it or not in quirks mode with these old java releases. The new ones are not compatible as they follow w3c and not the corporate standards MS/Oracle use.
I swear Oracle loves obsolete software and are doing this on purpose in order to make MS look bad and cost them revenue.
http://saveie6.com/
It's good to see that someone is being held accountable here. Benjamin Smedberg creates a shitload of negative publicity, pisses off a proportion of dedicated testers and he:
A. Gets a promotion
B. Is removed from positions of responsibility because he demonstrates poor judgement
C. Nothing happens
D. Gets a pay increase.
Answer = C
Come on guys at least make him wear a T shirt for a month that says, I must not override the recommendations of others in relation to 64 bit builds.
One of the key problems in organisations is that people aren't held accountable for poor judgement, or at least a running sheet is not maintained. Ben will probably continue to be promoted even through he has demonstrated that he has a fundamental lack of connection with what end users want. There is obviously something wrong occurring in the firefox mozilla groupthink and yet nothing is being done.
Haven't these people heard of ASLR and heap spraying Do they not understand the concepts?
Without 64-bit, you have two huge security problems. The first is that there simply isn't enough address space to randomize well. Attackers can guess things. They guess right often enough that the effort is worthwhile. The second huge security problem is that the address space is easy to fill with code-equivalent data for a ROP attack. Actually, with Firefox you could even use real code!
Using a 32-bit browser in 2012 is kind of insane. It's near-complete security FAIL.
And by the year after that, they'll need 128-bit just for the firefox version number.
I've been using 64bit nightly since the idea of dropping the builds was mentioned in bz. There was a big debate and a bunch of tech news sites picked up the story and now the latest is that they're being "restored". But the 64bit nightly builds never stopped! I'm sure this story is just to get everyone to STFU about it already.
bite my glorious golden ass.
That means Firefox will still be limited to 4 PiB, which I'm sure it'll be reaching by the release of Firefox 12,458 next year. We need a 128-bit version.
Naw... it is two things. Cleaner code and the lack of 32bit library cruft in a system. However plugins like flash and even Java32-.vs.-Java64 make me think that well flash is crud and Java not as portable as it should/could be.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
What I would like to see is the web go back to geocities. Websites never consumed any significant resources, RAM/CPU consumption was most likely due to a bug, than website (like Slashdot) itself consuming it.
So you switched to Chrome, which is constantly changing, because you hated that Firefox was constantly changing. Gotcha.