Mozilla quietly ceases Firefox 64-bit development

By +Gary7
in Web Browser Discussion & Support

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Grand Master

+Gary7 Subscriber²

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

Mozilla engineering manager Benjamin Smedberg has asked developers to stop nightly builds for Firefox on 64-bit versions of Windows.

A developer thread posted on the Google Groups mozilla.dev.planning discussion board, titled "Turning off win64 builds" by Smedberg proposed the disabling of the Windows 64-bit nightly builds for Firefox.

Citing reasons that Firefox 64-bit is a "constant source of misunderstanding and frustration," the engineer wrote that the builds often crash, many plugins are not available in 64-bit versions, and hangs are more common due to a lack of coding which causes plugins to function incorrectly. In addition, Smedberg argues that this causes users to feel "second class," and crash reports between 32-bit and 64-bit versions are difficult to distinguish between for the stability team.

Although willing to shelve the idea for a time if proven controversial -- as some developers disagreed with the idea -- Smedberg later said that:

The engineer then posted a thread titled "Disable windows 64 builds" on Bugzilla, asking developers to "stop building windows [sic] 64 builds and tests." These include the order to stop building Windows 64-bit nightly builds and repatriate existing Windows 64-bit nightly users onto Windows 32-bit builds using a custom update.

In order to stave off argument, even though one participant suggested that 50 percent of nightly testers were using the system, perhaps as an official 64-bit version of Firefox for Windows has never been released, Smedberg said it was "not the place to argue about this decision, which has already been made."

Another stupid move by Mozilla.

Grand Master

Lingwo

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Kind of a stupid move considering 64bit is becoming more standard nowadays. Do any processors from the last 4-5 years not support 64bit instructions?

I think it would be better for Mozilla if they found a compromise. Windows can work with 32bit and 64bit programs, why can't a browser do the same with its addons.

Grand Master

Phouchg

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I've been running Nightly x64 for the last 2 years, and I can count how many times it has crashed or there have been incompatibilities with addons on five fingers of a hand... plugins is another story, but that's because plugins are useless shyte anyways.

Rising Star

Sub_Zero_Alchemist

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XP was the first 64-bit OS

Grow up

I'm not talking about what was the first 64 bit, i was talking about making it only 64 bit. Why do i need to grow up? because im trying to

have an opinion. Im done dealing with you, since your going to act like a *bleep* about it.

Rising Star

Sub_Zero_Alchemist

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Poor Mozilla. No wonder Chrome has left them in the dust.

You might as well say poor chrome as well,still no sign of chrome's 64 bit browser like they promised to release. The only ones that do have a 64 bit browser

is IE and Opera.

Grand Master

Brandon H Supervisor

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You might as well say poor chrome as well,still no sign of chrome's 64 bit browser like they promised to release. The only ones that do have a 64 bit browser

is IE and Opera.

that's what you think https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1094641-meet-chrome-next/page__view__findpost__p__595320566
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