Firefox product manager Asa Dotzler determined that figuring out the 64-bit confusion surrounding Firefox 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. Considering the advantages and disadvantages of 64-bit – are you ready for a 64-bit Firefox?
It’s not like we haven’t had any 64-bit browsers so far. There has been a 64-bit version of IE9 and there are 64-bit versions of Firefox developer builds. Unfortunately, there have not been many reasons to download such software. Even if you run a 64-bit OS, it does not automatically mean that you should actually download a 64-bit browser. They may be slower and they may break plug-ins, among other things.
From Dotzler’s post:
“I’m collecting information on what people expect from and are concerned about with a 64-bit Firefox build for Win64 users. So far I’ve heard “improved performance” and “better security” in the pro column and “download confusion”, “plug-in availability”, and “memory footprint” in the con column.
Obviously improved performance and security would be great to have. And I’ll bet that the download confusion, plug-in issues, and memory footprint are all solvable issues. So, am I missing anything here? Are there other benefits or drawbacks that I haven’t got?”
Also, if you know Firefox well enough to point out specific work that needs to happen to make 64-bit builds a supportable reality, please let me know as well. I think doing 32-bit plug-in hosting like we do on Mac might be in that list. Maybe a stub installer that can pick the right download belongs in that list. Perhaps we also need changes to our release engineering infrastructure. Are there any concerns across different Windows versions (XP 64-bit vs 7 64-bit, for example?) Anything else?”
What is your first thought? Do you think it’s time to leave the old 32-bit browser behind and start focusing on the largely neglected 64-bit Firefox? Let’s take a step back and look at the differences between 32-bit and 64-bit applications.
So, what are 64-bit applications? 32-bit or 64-bit refers to the amount of memory that is processed by the CPU in chunks. In general, larger chunks means that more memory can be supported and more data can be processed in any given time frame. 32-bit processors can only support up to a maximum of 4 GB of RAM where as 64-bit processors support up to nearly one billion gigabytes of memory. What does this mean for the user? You won’t be running out of memory (at least if you physically install it) anytime soon.
In case you are wondering, AMD’s first 64-bit processor was released back in 2003 (the first Opteron) followed by the Athlon 64 (also released in 2003) – anything after that was automatically 64-bit capable on AMD’s side. Intel’s first mainstream 64-bit processor family was the Pentium 4600 series, released in March of 2005. If your PC isn’t older than 5 years, there is a really good chance that it supports 64-bit applications. If we look further back in history, 64-bit Windows computing reaches back all the way to 1996, when Microsoft discussed at Comdex Spring in Atlanta the possibility of releasing a 64-bit extension (W64S) for Windows 95. Of course, that never happened and while there were 64-bit version of Windows XP and Windows Vista, Windows 7 is the first Windows version that has made a big step toward mainstream 64-bit computing.
The most significant difference between 32-bit applications and 64-bit applications is the addressable memory. As 32-bit processors were limited to 4 GB of RAM, the operating systems were also limited to a maximum of 4 GB of RAM. This means that most operating systems reserved about half of it for themselves and applications could only use up to about 2 GB of memory (assuming you had that much available on your computer). This severely limits what you can actually do with your browser (limiting tabs, for example.)
If you ran an optimized 32-bit version of an application on a 64-bit computer with a 64-bit OS (Windows 7 Home Basic supports up to 8 GB, Windows 7 Home Premium supports up to 16 GB of RAM, Windows 7 Professional/Enterprise/Ultimate support 192 GB, Windows Server 2008 supports 2 TB) you could access a maximum of 4 GB of RAM for that application. There is no limit set by the operating system anymore, however your application only works in 32-bits which supports only 4 GB of memory. As web browsers become more powerful, they need more memory and you can only optimize so much. 4 GB of memory may not be enough in the near future.
The obvious solution is to go 64-bit. Well it is not that easy. There are multiple types of 64-bit processors – there are those based on the old x86 architectures (now known synonymously with 32-bit) which are basically 64-bit extensions, rather than native 64-bit processors, and then there are full 64-bit processors. Also, there is a difference between the Windows XP 64-bit edition and Windows Vista 64-bit and newer. Windows 64-bit XP was a hacked/recompiled version of a 32-bit windows meant to run on semi-64-bit hardware and was more for show then anything else. It used twice the memory (32-bit * 2) and offered virtually no advantages over the 32-bit version. It is worth noting that at the time of its release, most computers could not support more than 4 GB on the motherboard anyway (the average computer at the time had only 1 GB of RAM.)
Today, most computers are using 64-bit processors. However, while processors are advancing, most people still have just 4 GB of RAM or less and we are only now starting to see a shift to 6 and 8 GB systems. Unless you are running a workhorse or a gaming beast, you probably don’t have that much RAM in your PC.
This may sound trivial, but it is a critical problem for 64-bit applications. Native 64-bit applications use more memory, often times twice as much as 32-bit apps. While it is true that they use memory more efficiently, it won’t help your current Firefox memory problems. If your computer is having problems with Firefox now, lifting the 4 GB limit isn’t going to help you much, unless you actually have enough memory to support it. If you are limited to 4 GB of physical RAM and you see Firefox using all of it, what is the point of allowing the browser to use more?
64-bit has other unsolved problems as well, especially the issue that processing larger amounts of data which could possibly mean that you may actually see a reduction in processing speed, even though the overall performance is more efficient (this really depends on the processor you use.)
Let me also note “Flash,” “Java,” “Plug-ins” and “Addons.” As it stands right now, these technologies provide you with a lot of the content on the Internet. Many plug-ins and add-ons would have to be rewritten for the 64-bit platform and the people behind them simply don’t want to do it. Both Flash and Java currently have 64-bit versions but they are old, out of date, buggy, and cumbersome to set up and have no backwards compatibility with the 32-bit versions (Adobe, however, has just announced renewed 64-bit support for Flash 11). Most other smaller plug-ins don’t have any form of 64-bit support at all. Both Adobe and Sun need to get moving on 64-bit. However, with HTML5 gaining traction, they don’t have much time left. HTML 5 is native to the browser and is part of its core rendering engine, which means that it can easily be made 64-bit compliant. 64-bit could be super plausible in the near future.
If we put legacy computers aside, 64-bit offers many benefits. Better memory mapping, more efficient use of memory, faster processing, improved security (32-bit encryption vs. 64-bit encryption … think about the difference in supported RAM and compare that to the difference in encryptions), native 64-bit hardware and software support that can come in handy when running hardware acceleration and graphics intensive technology such as WebGL. Depending on your hardware, a 64-bit Firefox should be generally faster (especially in well-rendered JavaScript and videos), more secure, and more efficient with its memory use.
So, in answering Asa’s question, there are many problems that need to be solved and moving Firefox to 64-bit is much more complicated than it seems.
(Conceivably Tech)
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