The Firefox web browser is only offered as a 32-bit download at the official Mozilla website. Users won’t find any information about a 64-bit Firefox version on those standard pages. Plans of the Mozilla development team are to offer a 64-bit edition of Firefox once Firefox 4 is released to the public. But that is not likely going to happen until the end of year, if everything developers as smoothly as planned.
Most Windows users do not know that 64-bit editions of Firefox exists. Firefox 64-bit editions for Windows are provided as downloads. Current downloads include Firefox 3.0, Firefox 3.5, Firefox 3.6 and the pre-builds of Firefox 3.7.
It should be obvious that 64-bit editions of Firefox work only on 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system. The 64-bit edition supports 64-bit plugins and not 32-bit plugins. Those are the two restrictions that users should know before starting the download and installation.
It should also be noted that those builds are experimental builds that are not officially supported by Mozilla. This becomes obvious as bugs that are experienced in the 64-bit editions may not be added to Bugzilla, the bug tracking application for all Mozilla projects.
Users who want to download Firefox 64-bit for Windows can do so at this website. The website hosts 64-bit editions of Thunderbird as well.
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Mozilla Firefox 64-bit Builds DownloadFirefox 3.5.8 And Firefox 3.0.18 Downloads Today
Updated Firefox 4.0 64-bit Windows Nightly
Firefox 4 Supported Platforms Announced, 32-bit only
Firefox Custom Builds
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Any advantage of using the 64-bit version?
No benefits. You will hardly see any performance improvement (if any), and given the fact that Flash and Silverlight do not run on x64 at this point, you will not even get the standard browsing experience from a x86 browser.
For now, no rush to x64.
Yeah, no flash, no game.
@blf
I run Vista Home Premium 64bit. I have no problem viewing Flash videos and online Flash games.
Barbarosa, this is likely because you run a 32-bit version of Firefox.
Martin, the OP’s statement didn’t specify FF64: “Flash and Silverlight do not run on x64 at this point”. “x64″ could mean any 64bit OS or browser. If he does believe that they don’t work on any 64bit system, then my comment could be of value to him (and others).