Interviewed by CNN on 13/02/2012 13:01, gjikkl told the world: > Yes please make a 64-bit version, is also good for Mozilla, native > support from Windows 64-bits, take advantage of 64-bit environment, no > WoW64 emulator, everyone is moving to 64-bit since is the future, come > on people, what stops you from doing it? I suggest you keep the 32-bit > version for about 4 more years, when i think 32-bit will be phased out > and it'll only remain as a WoW64 antique or 32-bit OSs on old machines. > Micro$oft has officially said that Windows 8 will be the last hybrid > 32-/64-bit Windows. > > Regards
I understand it's in the roadmap for the whole Mozilla family (and Firefox does have a x64 build in testing), but in fact the decision to move to x64 is a bit complex. The first thing, of course, is that as long as there are people needing to use the x86 version (for whatever reason), there will be two versions to maintain. Yes, they will be very similar, but still, it does demand resources. Then, there is the matter of add-ons. The Firefox people have looked into this and concluded that at present there is no practical way for a x64 browser use x86 plug-ins. As I understand it (and I'm not a developer), it *might* be possible after Project Electrolysis (rewriting Gecko/Firefox as a multithreaded application) is final. But Electrolysis was temporarily put on hold to focus on other aspects of development. So it might be a while. Besides plugins, extensions with binary components would probably need separate x86 and x64 versions too. So a x64 browser would have less options for add-ons in general. (In fact, Vista and Win7 ship with *both* the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of IE, and the 32-bit version is the *default* one, exactly for that reason) Yes, Flash, Java and Silverlight do have x64 plug-ins available. These three DO cover the lion's share of users needs. But there are lots of other niche plugins that have no x64 version and might be missed by users. Neither the Firefox nor the Seamonkey teams are eager to drop those users with niche needs. -- MCBastos This message has been protected with the 2ROT13 algorithm. Unauthorized use will be prosecuted under the DMCA. -=-=- ... Sent from my VT-100. * Added by TagZilla 0.7a1 running on Seamonkey 2.7.1 * Get it at http://xsidebar.mozdev.org/modifiedmailnews.html#tagzilla _______________________________________________ support-seamonkey mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/support-seamonkey
