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I'm using Firefox 3.6 (32-bit version) on Windows 7 x64 Home Professional. I wonder whether it is better for me to start using 64-bit version of Firefox or not? Is 64-bit Firefox better in terms of performance? Do you recommend upgrading to it?
Mehper C. Palavuzlar
Posted 2010-03-16T15:52:57.980
Reputation: 51 093
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In short: You won't gain anything. At least it's highly unlikely.
Now, granted, tabbed browsing gobbles up pretty much memory but it still usually comes nowhere near the 4 GiB limit imposed on 32-bit processes on a 64-bit system. Furthermore, you're unlikely to find any plug-ins that work with the 64-bit version. Although the lack of Adobe Flash might just be beneficial for performance ;-)
Joey
Posted 2010-03-16T15:52:57.980
Reputation: 36 381
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According to this (old) article, there are some slight speed improvements with the x64 version of Firefox. Note they're using Firefox 3.0 and 3.1. It's not always the case, depending on the type of operations they're benchmarking.
However, take care that you need 64-bits plugins too. There aren't many yet. There is a Java one, but no Flash.
Snark
Posted 2010-03-16T15:52:57.980
Reputation: 30 147