4 edits | [Info] Mozilla quietly kills Firefox 64-bit for Windows
Windows 64 builds: R.I.P. ? |
quote:
t h e n e x t w e b . c o m
Mozilla quietly kills Firefox 64-bit for Windows, despite an estimated 50% of testers using it
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Mozilla Engineering Manager Benjamin Smedberg last Friday quietly posted a thread over on the Google Groups mozilla.dev.planning discussion board titled “Turning off win64 builds.” By Wednesday, Smedberg had declared that the 64-bit version of Firefox for Windows would never see the light of day
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More @ »thenextweb.com/apps/2012/11/22/m···sing-it/
Related:
• Please stop building windows 64 builds and tests - by Benjamin Smedberg
»bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=814009
• Turning off win64 builds
»groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/···_z5zieD4
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.2; Win64; x64; rv:20.0) Gecko/20.0 Firefox/20.0 ID:20121126030823
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non nova, sed nove
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 chrisretusnRetiredPremium
join:2007-08-13
Philippines
kudos:1 | Since Windows 8 (64-bit) is not pure 64, it really doesn't matter that much. I've been using Firefox 64-bit for a few years... in Slackware64 Linux. 
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Chris
Living in Paradise!! |
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 mromeroPremium
join:2000-12-07
The O.C.
kudos:1 | reply to Gone Fishing
 guess i'll now switch to Google Chrome fully now. |
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 BlitzenZeusBurnt Out CynicPremium
join:2000-01-13
kudos:2
 ·Frontier FiOS
| If your complaint that it's not 64-bit that doesn't make sense.
"They can switch to OS X or Linux, both of which have full versions of Firefox 64-bit. Windows 64-bit users meanwhile can only consider Internet Explorer and Opera, since both Chrome and Safari don’t offer 64-bit flavors."
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I distrust those people who know so well what god wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires- Susan B. Anthony
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 siljalineI'm lovin' that double widePremium
join:2002-10-12
Montreal, QC
kudos:17
 ·Bell Sympatico
| reply to Gone Fishing
Moz has officially pulled the plug on all 64bit, per EndGadget | CNET | FavBrowser. |
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| reply to Gone Fishing
Thanks GF.
Firefox 32-bit runs fine on 64-bit Win 7/8. |
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mromeroPremium
join:2000-12-07
The O.C.
kudos:1 | reply to BlitzenZeus
I will switch over to Chrome now since the *only* reason I was using Firefox Nightly was because it was 64 bit and supported 64 bit Flash Player . Now that both are 32 bit, no reason for me to stay with Firefox. |
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 MavenPremium
join:2002-03-12
Canada | reply to chrisretusn
said by chrisretusn:Since Windows 8 (64-bit) is not pure 64 What do you mean by "pure" 64bit? |
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chrisretusnRetiredPremium
join:2007-08-13
Philippines
kudos:1 | Pure 64-bit means, there are no 32-bit programs or shared libraries installed. The only reason the 32-bit Firefox runs in a 64-bit Windows is because there are 32-bit versions of shared libraries included along side the 64-bit ones. A program compiled to run on a 32-bit system will not run in a pure 64-bit system.
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Chris
Living in Paradise!! |
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 spewakR.I.P DadkinsPremium
join:2001-08-07
Elk Grove, CA
kudos:1 | reply to Gone Fishing
There is always Pale Moon....Yes? |
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 plencnerbPremium
join:2000-09-25
Elgin, IL
kudos:2 | said by spewak:There is always Pale Moon....Yes?
I don't believe that by stopping development on Firefox x64 means that the developers / teams who are on the Pale Moon Project, or the Waterfox Project will get some kind of notice to stop what they are doing. These two projects (and others like it, if they exist) will continue, as far as I know.
I think the point of Benjamin's message is that the developers who work for Mozilla on the Firefox x64 project will be assigned to other tasks. Since the people who work on Pale Moon and Waterfox don't work directly for Mozilla, there work should continue. I cannot find it now, but I thought I read somewhere in all of this that Benjamin actually said something along these lines, in that people would be allowed to take the firefox source code, and compile it to 64 if they wish (which is exactly what Pale Moon and Waterfox are doing, on a very high level).
--Brian
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--Brian Plencner
E-Mail: CoasterBrian72Cancer@gmail.com
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| reply to Gone Fishing
Could be Waterfox and Pale Moon will continue for now but at some point if Mozilla isn't updating their 64 bit code so it stays current with the 32 bit code both will hit a dead end.
If all that is available is code that is designed to be complied into 32 bit applications just how much advantage is there going to be to compile it into 64 bit code? Exactly how much faster would a 64 bit Firefox actually run?
32 bit runs just fine and frankly with the pace regular Firefox is at with new releases its becoming more hassle than its worth to stay current with Waterfox or Palemoon.
And its almost getting to be too much hassle to stay current with Firefox. |
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plencnerbPremium
join:2000-09-25
Elgin, IL
kudos:2 | said by jsmiddleton4:Could be Waterfox and Pale Moon will continue for now but at some point if Mozilla isn't updating their 64 bit code so it stays current with the 32 bit code both will hit a dead end.
This is what they say on Waterfox's page
quote:
About Waterfox
Waterfox is a high performance browser based on the Mozilla Firefox source code. Made specifically for 64-Bit systems, Waterfox has one thing in mind: speed.
Q:What makes Waterfox fast?
A:Waterfox was compiled with Intel's C++ Compiler with the following optimisations: Intel's Math Library, SSE3, AVX for supported Intel processors, jemalloc, Profile-Guided Optimisation and the /O3 switch.
I take that to read they get the source for Firefox (I would assume the 32 bit source, but it does not explicitly say that), and then they compile it using the optimizations noted above.
So, if they are using the 32 bit source for Firefox, then I don't see that changing anytime soon.
However, if they have been taking the 64 bit Firefox source, and then doing a compile on that....then we could have an issue.
I wonder if there is a way to find out?
--Brian
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--Brian Plencner
E-Mail: CoasterBrian72Cancer@gmail.com
Note: Kill Cancer to Reply via e-mail |
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 redxiiPremium,Mod
join:2001-02-26
Sherwood, MI
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1 edit | I am not a programmer, but I know there aren't separate sources for "32-bit" and "64-bit" or for any particular OS. They use one source code and depending on the compiler they use it will generate binaries for a specific platform; using a preprocessor it avoids having to duplicate source code for small differences between the platforms/compilers. The compiler Mozilla uses for Windows (MinGW) can even distinguish between whether MinGW is 32 or 64 bit. In most cases you can just take the source code as-is and run it through a 64-bit compiler, and you get 64-bit binaries.
I can't really say why 64-bit Firefox is so hard. I took a program much simpler/smaller than Firefox and its dependency (Qt, which is hundreds of megabytes just for the source code) and simply ran it through a 64-bit compiler (also MinGW like Firefox) and it is every bit as stable as its 32-bit counterpart. I use it every day and distributed it to thousands of people.
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plencnerbPremium
join:2000-09-25
Elgin, IL
kudos:2 | That is what I thought. And if the teams of people who work on the Waterfox Project can do it, then I don't see why the team over at Mozilla who work on Firefox are having issues keeping up.
Yes, there will be bugs and issues to resolve, but that comes with any program one writes. No program is 100% bug free, unless its the one line "Hello World" program! 
--Brian |
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| I'll take a shot at answering.......
And the answer is "why". Why spend money, whatever the amount is, and resources, whatever that amounts to, developing and maintaining a product that for all intentional purposes is not faster, no more powerful, than a 32 bit version?
It is also the case that the decision seems to be equally about plug-ins and support programs that are not 64 bit. |
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siljalineI'm lovin' that double widePremium
join:2002-10-12
Montreal, QC
kudos:17 Reviews:
·Bell Sympatico
| reply to Gone Fishing
64-bit Firefox for Windows should be prioritized, not suspended
quote:
The stable, supported, mainstream version of Firefox on Windows is a 32-bit application. Even if you use 64-bit Windows, if you use Firefox, you're using a 32-bit browser. The exception is if you're using the Nightly build of Firefox. This represents the latest, cutting-edge version of the browser, and it's available in two versions: a 32-bit one, and a 64-bit one.
However, this won't last much longer. Mozilla announced last week it was no longer going to produce 64-bit Nightly builds of Firefox for Windows; nor will it run automated tests of 64-bit Firefox. The browser's future on Windows is resolutely 32-bit. Linux and Mac OS X, in contrast, both have official 64-bit versions.
Several reasons were given for this discontinuation: many plugins have no 64-bit version, Mozilla's bug reporting and tracking infrastructure provides no clear distinction between 32-bit and 64-bit problems, bugs go unfixed because the 64-bit Windows version is not deemed a priority, and JavaScript performance in the 64-bit builds is substantially slower than in the 32-bit version. Further, Mozilla developers say they won't fix any bugs that only manifest in 64-bit versions. Firefox developers say a fully supported 64-bit version of Firefox won't be released in the first half of 2013 and it probably won't make the second half either.
Article |
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 DarkLogixTexan and ProudPremium
join:2008-10-23
Baytown, TX
kudos:3 | reply to chrisretusn
said by chrisretusn:Pure 64-bit means, there are no 32-bit programs or shared libraries installed. The only reason the 32-bit Firefox runs in a 64-bit Windows is because there are 32-bit versions of shared libraries included along side the 64-bit ones. A program compiled to run on a 32-bit system will not run in a pure 64-bit system.
Um ya that worked so well with the itanium IA64 CPU. |
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DarkLogixTexan and ProudPremium
join:2008-10-23
Baytown, TX
kudos:3 | reply to redxii
said by redxii:I am not a programmer, but I know there aren't separate sources for "32-bit" and "64-bit" or for any particular OS. They use one source code and depending on the compiler they use it will generate binaries for a specific platform; using a preprocessor it avoids having to duplicate source code for small differences between the platforms/compilers. The compiler Mozilla uses for Windows (MinGW) can even distinguish between whether MinGW is 32 or 64 bit. In most cases you can just take the source code as-is and run it through a 64-bit compiler, and you get 64-bit binaries.
I can't really say why 64-bit Firefox is so hard. I took a program much simpler/smaller than Firefox and its dependency (Qt, which is hundreds of megabytes just for the source code) and simply ran it through a 64-bit compiler (also MinGW like Firefox) and it is every bit as stable as its 32-bit counterpart. I use it every day and distributed it to thousands of people.
While true, this lacks some info.
It is possible to make code that can only be compiled for 64bit, IE use data types for variables that are to large (kinda like in the windows registry =, Qwords, when 32bit only has Dwords)
Failure to use the larger variable types in places that they're useful would cause you to lose out on some of the speed of 64bit.
IE having to have it use say Dword+Dword instead of just Qword takes more CPU cycles, though each instance of that is just 1 extra but that can add up. |
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DarkLogixTexan and ProudPremium
join:2008-10-23
Baytown, TX
kudos:3 | reply to jsmiddleton4
said by jsmiddleton4:I'll take a shot at answering.......
And the answer is "why". Why spend money, whatever the amount is, and resources, whatever that amounts to, developing and maintaining a product that for all intentional purposes is not faster, no more powerful, than a 32 bit version?
It is also the case that the decision seems to be equally about plug-ins and support programs that are not 64 bit.
Ya, simply re-compiling for 64bit is pointless, to get the speed boost you have to review and change things.
that's why there are a few levels of 64bit-ness
1. Non-compatible, (we don't really see this much any more but in the early win64 days some programs couldn't run on win64)
2. compatible, this is what Firefox32 is, it'll run on win64 using wow64 and not natively
3. recompiled, this is the simple swapping of setting on the compiler, It'll run using the 64bit libraries but it'll still use the smaller variable types that are still available, programs that don't do alot can stay at this stage forever.
4. True 64bit programs, the code has been reviewed and variables optimized, to reduce the number of operations needed to achieve the result by making use of larger variable types available to 64bit. (this takes the most programer time to do)
in type 4 you could replace an instance of storing a ipv6 address with 4 32bit variables with only 2 64bit variables, thus any function done on the ipv6 address would require less CPU overhead by half.
There are more examples but I'm not a programer so I don't know the details of what firefox has that could be improved like this.
But I assume and hope that waterfox is type 4 and not just a type 3. |
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