Mozilla quietly ceases Firefox 64-bit development

Very interesting. http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57553467-93/mozilla-quietly-ceases-firefox-64-bit-development/

 

I think that this was inevitable with Fx for Windows.

 

When the opposite should be true. Between this and the rapid release schedule and the issues and arguments over add-ons I think I will give IE10 a go for a while.

 

They don't develop for it, only build. People use 64bit Firefox thinking it's "beta" when it's not even, they just build it.

This makes a lot of sense. Those who want 64bit can still use Waterfox or Palemoon, which will still build 64bit optimized for SSE.

 

These are some of the reasons why I prefer SeaMonkey. Unfortunately, things that affect Fx sometimes affect SM.

I quite like Opera 64 bit. I can live with its quirks.

Jeez, things aren't that bad yet! LOL

 

Maybe. I had just finished reading about the Mobile OS Mozilla is working on at another site. We don't need another mobile OS that nobody cares about. The time could be better spent on things people actually want. Firefox is the least secure browser and despite their frequent update schedule they aren't making any real advances with it and don't seem interested in doing so. Everyone else has a sandbox and/or low integrity mode and Firefox runs at medium integrity with no sandbox.

 

Firefox 64-bit development for Windows gets 'turned off' by Mozilla

Article

 

Yes, I see your points & agree. Which is one of the reasons that when I run SM/Fx I use ABP, NoScript & a flashblocker & also have the Java toggled off (with easy access on/off with PrefBar). I can't think of anything else to 'harden' it really. You'd have thought that they would have made more progress with sandboxing at least. Perhaps if they stopped the 42 day update cycle & concentrated on sandboxing Firefox?

 

This and facebook integration.... Firefox really going down the drain faster than I previously thought. Anybody thinks this is going to be Netscape 2.0? Kind of sad, I really enjoyed the browser over the years.

And there is no excuse for Mozilla not to innovate and create 64 bit version. Pale Moon is 64 and it's very stable, faster and doesn't crush. Why do they choose to be a follower instead of a leader is beyond me.

 

Facebook isn't integrated. They created a social media API that other websites can use as well. It's similar to what RockMelt did.

The "excuse" they've given for not supporting 64bit is fair - that 64bit is not proving beneficial in terms of performance, at least not enough to dedicate the significant development costs towards it. There are other ways to improve performance, even on 32bit, and they're focusing on that.

I wish they had an infinite supply of developers because there are benefits to 64bit, but it's their job to manage. At this point 64bit support is more of a gimmick than a feature.

 

Finally, some sane comments on the subject.

 

But they are allocating those development resources to an OS nobody wants. 64 bit is more about security than performance. If performance were the issue I would just run Opera. More likely I will revisit IE or maybe even give Chrome another trial. With those I won't even have to argue with security vendors about keeping their add-ons up to date.

 

I'm pretty convinced my comments were sane on this subject.

 

I wonder what the actual figures of which is the most popular, 32 or 64 bit, are for new Windows computers sold?

 

can they just concentrate #1 security and #2 speed instead of any kind of social media?

exactly... 64 bit is the future and that's where they should be heading.

 

I haven't seen any figures, but from what I have seen of my customer base, most new machines are 64 bit.

 

32bit applications still run on 64bit Windows though, so it's not a priority as the benefits are not outweighing the significant costs.

That development time can go towards other project.

The team working on the Social Media API is likely not a team that would be doing anything with 64bit, just as the Mozilla Security Team is likely made up of entirely separate developers, whose time is allotted in an entirely separate way.

You don't just pull developers from the Social Media API and toss them at security - doesn't work that way.

 

Fire social media developers and use the resources to hire security developers.

 

lol I don't think they'd even need to do that. Mozilla has quite a bit of money, they could hire more developers. I just don't think it's always a matter of throwing money or developers at a project, moreso it's having proper management of the developers you have.

If throwing money at a problem could fix it we'd have 64bit Chrome by now.

The developers are choosing which projects to work on. You may disagree with those decisions.

 

It would make sense.

 

When I buy a new computer it will almost certainly be 64 bit. I was a bit hesitant when I bought my first 64 bit desktop, & for a while there wasn't even any flash support, but I am glad I went for 64 bit for a variety of reasons. Security & speed predominantly.

FWIW I am quite impressed with Opera 64 bit. It seems that they are little ahead of Fx in this respect.

 

Yep, same here, I've been on 64 bit for about 4 and a half years now, and have no regrets or issues whatsoever... I don't really care if there is a 64 bit Firefox or not, I just use 32 bit anyway. I've had IE x64 for years now, but never use it. A lot of other apps are 32 bit also. It did seem like 64 bit IE was a bit quicker, but for all I know, that could have just been my imagination...

 

After a few months using Waterfox I decided to uninstall it & went back to SeaMonkey. The speed advantage seemed quite minimal & there were bugs, plus my PC has an AMD processor. There are now some more 64 bit versions of apps though. Stellarium has a 64 bit version, VLC are developing a 64 bit version etc.

I'm just as happy in a 32 bit browser I reckon. Opera 64 bit does seem quite zippy to me. I'd probably feel happier with a sandboxed Firefox/SeaMonkey than a 64 bit version anyway.

As I said earlier, I think that with all of the attendant problems that the Fx developers seem to be having with 64 bit, there was an inevitability of an abandonment of 64 bit development, or at least a putting it on hold.

 

Even though surely 64-bit is more popular, I would think that in the vast majority of cases (including from the OEMs), the intent is to use more RAM, not to run 64-bit applications. I know that's pretty much why I started using 64-bit Windows 5 years ago.

Firefox stopping development on it is disappointing, but they're hardly alone in not having a 64-bit version of their software.

 

I should imagine you're right, but the security advantages of 64 bit are a plus factor as well.