Batu69 Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 By default, on Windows, Firefox is a 32-bit application. This means that it is limited to using at most 4 GiB of memory, even on machines that have more than 4 GiB of physical memory (RAM). In fact, depending on the OS configuration, the limit may be as low as 2 GiB. Now, 2–4 GiB might sound like a lot of memory, but it’s not that unusual for power users to use that much. This includes: users with many (dozens or even hundreds) of tabs open; users with many (dozens) of extensions; users of memory-hungry web sites and web apps; and users who do all of the above! Furthermore, in practice it’s not possible to totally fill up this available space because fragmentation inevitably occurs. For example, Firefox might need to make a 10 MiB allocation and there might be more than 10 MiB of unused memory, but if that available memory is divided into many pieces all of which are smaller than 10 MiB, then the allocation will fail. When an allocation does fail, Firefox can sometimes handle it gracefully. But often this isn’t possible, in which case Firefox will abort. Although this is a controlled abort, the effect for the user is basically identical to an uncontrolled crash, and they’ll have to restart Firefox. A significant fraction of Firefox crashes/aborts are due to this problem, known as address space exhaustion. Fortunately, there is a solution to this problem available to anyone using a 64-bit version of Windows: use a 64-bit version of Firefox. Now, 64-bit applications typically use more memory than 32-bit applications. This is because pointers, a common data type, are twice as big; a rough estimate for 64-bit Firefox is that it might use 25% more memory. However, 64-bit applications also have a much larger address space, which means they can access vast amounts of physical memory, and address space exhaustion is all but impossible. (In this way, switching from a 32-bit version of an application to a 64-bit version is the closest you can get to downloading more RAM!) Therefore, if you have a machine with 4 GiB or less of RAM, switching to 64-bit Firefox probably won’t help. But if you have 8 GiB or more, switching to 64-bit Firefox probably will help the memory usage situation. Official 64-bit versions of Firefox have been available since December 2015. If the above discussion has interested you, please try them out. But note the following caveats. Flash and Silverlight are the only supported 64-bit plugins. There are some Flash content regressions due to our NPAPI sandbox (for content that uses advanced features like GPU acceleration or microphone APIs). On the flip side, as well as avoiding address space exhaustion problems, a security feature known as ASLR works much better in 64-bit applications than in 32-bit applications, so 64-bit Firefox will be slightly more secure. Work is being ongoing to fix or minimize the mentioned caveats, and it is expected that 64-bit Firefox will be rolled out in increasing numbers in the not-too-distant future. UPDATE: Chris Peterson gave me the following measurements about daily active users on Windows. 66.0% are running 32-bit Firefox on 64-bit Windows. These users could switch to a 64-bit Firefox. 32.3% are running 32-bit Firefox on 32-bit Windows. These users cannot switch to a 64-bit Firefox. 1.7% are running 64-bit Firefox already. Article source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pc71520 Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 Proud Firefox x64 user, here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator DKT27 Posted July 22, 2016 Administrator Share Posted July 22, 2016 It's quite surprising to see not much of the Firefox users are using the 64-bit version. Last time I checked, even Mozilla was not pushing for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sylence Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 That's where they exactly need to inform that 66% to use Firefox 64-bit edition Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChiliBean Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 Right. I didn't even know there was a 64-bit version. Getting it now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator DKT27 Posted July 22, 2016 Administrator Share Posted July 22, 2016 9 minutes ago, ChiliBean said: Right. I didn't even know there was a 64-bit version. Getting it now. We added it to the FP when it was made available by them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davmil Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 I recall seeing a post that the 64-bit version was significantly slower overall. True? In a meaningful way or just 1-2%? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kadrex Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 Yeah, I've been using cyberfox64. I still keep the 32bit version because there are two plugins that I use frequently that don't run on 64. One being google talk that I use to make calls from within gmail. Other to check in on the webcam. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jordan Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 4 hours ago, davmil said: I recall seeing a post that the 64-bit version was significantly slower overall. True? In a meaningful way or just 1-2%? i confirm i switched back quite some time ago to the x32 version which is working way better on x64 system Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMountain Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 I disagree. It sounds like to me people run a stock Firefox configuration. Make a few changes & Firefox miraculously feels speedier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steven36 Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 7 hours ago, davmil said: I recall seeing a post that the 64-bit version was significantly slower overall. True? In a meaningful way or just 1-2%? It really dont make it no slower unless you have a pc without much ram or memory . Only benefit x64 has over x86 is if you are doing something that takes a lot of memory like playing a game in you're browser but if you dont have a fast system you're not going to be able to do this no way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davmil Posted July 23, 2016 Share Posted July 23, 2016 6 hours ago, TheMountain said: I disagree. It sounds like to me people run a stock Firefox configuration. Make a few changes & Firefox miraculously feels speedier. Care to share those config changes? Thank you in advance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steven36 Posted July 23, 2016 Share Posted July 23, 2016 Here was a test that was done on it and Raymond said that Quote Any Firefox 64-bit version still appears to be very much a work in progress and it’s difficult to recommend installing any x64 version if you are specifically looking for higher performance. We should see some performance improvements in the future, but Firefox 64-bit doesn’t appear to give you a faster browsing experience at this time. https://www.raymond.cc/blog/mozilla-firefox-64bit-build-performance-compared-to-32bit/ I used cyberfox x64 for along time before Firefox had x64 for windows.. Rule of thumb x64 browsers use more memory out the box than x86 do. So if you dont do high memory task, it dont help it just uses more memory . x86 browsers can handle up to 4gb memory x64 browsers can handle over 4GB of memory and x86 cant that's the difference besides x64 is going use more memory out the box. So if x64 helps you're using way too much memory in you're browser like over 4 gb. The only browser that's really honest about it is slimjet that there's no benefit out of it for everyday browsing Quote 32-bit Slimjet Web Browser is recommended for both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows. If you want to go 64-bit at the cost of more memory usage http://www.slimjet.com/en/dlpage.php Firefox really didn't want to add x64 browsers for windows it was another thing they added because google has it and people assume its faster and want it, but in real test its not Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMountain Posted July 23, 2016 Share Posted July 23, 2016 1 hour ago, davmil said: Care to share those config changes? Thank you in advance. prefs.js.txt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pc71520 Posted July 23, 2016 Share Posted July 23, 2016 THIS Thread maybe interesting... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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