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To be fair, as others have mentioned Chrome doesn't even have a pre-Alpha 64-bit version, and a number of plugins don't work with 64-bit browsers. Sometimes you
by pyre 14y ago
To be fair, as others have mentioned Chrome doesn't even have a pre-Alpha 64-bit version, and a number of plugins don't work with 64-bit browsers. Sometimes you have to pick your battles, it's not like Mozilla has infinite resources.
- justinschuh 14y agoI'm one of the leads for the 64-bit Chrome on Windows work, and it is very much underway. I can't commit to a timeline, but we are attacking this pretty aggressively right now because it's a nice win on both the security and performance fronts. I'm a bit shocked to see Firefox moving in the opposite direction.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- cpeterso 14y agoAre the 64-bit challenges on Windows much different than OS X or Linux? Chrome for OS X is also 32-bit, but Firefox is 64-bit.
- yuhong 14y agoSome differences include the need for JITs to generate proper unwind tables for SEH to work properly.
- gsnedders 14y agoAs well as a different calling convention.
- justinschuh 14y agoWell, OS X is easier because much of the work has already been done for Linux 64, as both are posix-ish lp64 architectures. Whereas Windows is llp64 plus its own APIs and ABIs, which means much more unique porting issues. Beyond that, there's all the infrastructure you need to stand up for development, continuous integration, QA, metrics, and shipping to hundreds of millions of users. The logistics of that part are almost the same as supporting an entirely new OS, and in the case of Windows it's one with an insanely large and diverse population. So yeah, that parts actually a lot worse just because of the sheer numbers.
- yuhong 14y agoTo be honest, Chrome is multi-process while Firefox is single-process.
- unreal37 14y agoTo elaborate, each tab in Chrome can use up to 2GB as it runs in its own process, while the entire Firefox window is limited in a 32-bit architecture. So the need in Chrome to go 64- from 32-bit from a memory perspective is less.
- yxhuvud 14y agoThe reason seems to be that they are focusing on uninteresting crap like Metro and FirefoxOS.
- vacri 14y agoIf there are not 64-bit browsers, how will there ever be plugins to work with them?
- mappu 14y agoI don't think plugins are as compelling an argument today as they were a few years back. Flash is basically gone, and Firefox's PDF viewer is 100% Javascript. The only plugin i have is the JRE - which has provided a 64-bit version for over 10 years (SPARC64 in Java 1.4). And i can't remember the last time i chanced upon a Java applet in a webpage. Even the Unity3D Web Player has a 64-bit browser plugin. I can't imagine what's really missing other than outdated versions of RealPlayer.
- Haplo 14y agoFlash is still installed on over 99% of desktop browsers. And the pdf viewer is way too slow (at least for me) for real world usage.