64 bit Firefox on Leopard

It won't make a damn difference.


64 bit has really gotten to people.

All 64 bit offers is the ability to access more memory and be able to do intense computational work in a shorter amount of time.


Firefox is not an intense application, and it doesn't require a crap load of ram. It is a web browser.

I believe you'd see a 0-10% difference in performance if it was written in 64 bit.

 

No, I don't believe so.

 

Because nobody have built one.
The Firefox source code are freely available. So grab it and build your own 64-bit version.

 

I saw this on a google search for "64-bit firefox mac". From other results, it appears that Firefox for Mac uses some Carbon, which cannot run in 64-bit Mac applications. Until they eliminate all bits of Carbon and replace them with Cocoa, a 64-bit version is sadly impossible.

That said, there would be benefits. Namely, the ability to run Java 1.6 in Firefox for Mac. Java 1.6 cannot run in 32-bit applications at all. I discovered this all when Runescape (a java game) suddenly stopped working in Firefox. Apparently a recent update has required 1.6 — and there is no version for Java 1.5 available. My only recourse is to play it in Safari until such time as a 64-bit Firefox for Mac is released, by somebody, somewhere.

 

thats one of the reasons why 95% of firefox 3 is now in cocoa

there is a plan for 64bit release in the near future. I think windows version will be the first to get there.

and finally, I agree with #2 post that 64bit probably won't help apps like browsers significantly.

 

Well

But seriously, what would you want to get from a 64-bit firefox on mac that you can't get from a 32-bit? Faster speed for playing a few dozen online games? That's probably one of the major reasons why some people would want to amp up their browser. Other than that, 32-bit would be just fine.

 

64-bit code does not guarentee faster execution. In fact in some cases, using 64-bit code is actually slower than 32-bit code.

 

As I said earlier, the issue isn't speed. It's compatibility. The latest release of Java is 1.6 and can only run in 64-bit browsers. So if there is something online that requires Java 1.6, which there is, I have to run it in Safari.

 

Yes.

Apple took the odd Decision of making Java 64-bit, they should step up and make Safari 64-bit.

 

Well, the odd thing with that is that Safari seems to be 64-bit... at least as far as java is concerned....

 

from:
http://boomswaggerboom.wordpress.com/2008/06/15/gecko-191-mac-os-x-plans/
We’ve started working on Gecko 1.9.1 for Mac OS X. It is early in the development cycle and things could change, but I want to give people an idea of what we’re planning on doing as of now.

Aside from the usual bug squashing, we’re going to focus on minimizing Carbon usage and getting ready for 64-bit. Gecko 1.9.0 is generally Cocoa-based but it still contains a modest amount of Carbon and other code that is not 64-bit-ready. We’re probably not going to be Carbon-free or 64-bit-ready for the Gecko 1.9.1 release, but we can make a lot of progress.

* I’m adding support for NPAPI plugin event model negotiation and the Cocoa event model in bug 435041. This will allow for Carbon-free plugins and is major step towards 64-bit Gecko on Mac OS X.
* I’m working on new file system interaction code for Mac OS X in bug 438694. The goal of this work is modern and clean 64-bit-ready code that uses supported APIs.
* I’m also hoping to rewrite our print dialog implementation in Cocoa. It is one of the few components that are still completely Carbon-based.


-------------------

Firefox 3.1 will have Gecko 1.9.1

 

Flash is only 32 bit so a 64 bit browser will not support (or Adobe doesn't support 64 bit) a flash player.

 

The bank that I do most online banking with (Banco Nacional de Costa Rica) has just implemented a Java app that requires SE 6. Without this I am now limited in what I can do online. Yeah, I can use my PC, but that's not why we just bought a Mac!

What version are you using? I can't get it to work at all. In fact, part way through the login Safari crashes completely...whether I have 5.0 or SE 6 first in the prefs list makes no difference.

I've been Googling most of the afternoon but did not find much useful info until I finally stumbled upon this thread. ¡Bueno suerte! to Aronnax for a Carbon-free and 64-bit 1.9.1 Gecko.

[Update 19-Sep-2008]
I tried again today, and BNCR has changed the requirement to Java 5.0 (or 1.5, or whatever you prefer to call it). Firefox 3 on our Mac now works with this site... Yay, hooray. Safari still doesn't work yet, but it looks like they are trying to resolve that problem, too.

 

Safari isn't a 64-bit application

Safari is not executed as a 64-bit application - the activity monitor is not displaying something like this in the kind column.
The Java Preferences pane is also pointing out that Java 6 SE (the JRE) is only available for 64-bit browsers. J2SE 5.0 is used in 32-bit browsers - this includes Safari.

By the way: Using 64-bit applications is not always a issue of performance and memory consumption. Sometimes it is just a compatibility issue or what ever... Therefore may just accept the needs of others - even if the own point of few didn't offer the needs for such a request ;-)

 

I realize this is an old thread, but I am sick of hearing that 64-bit only advantage is more memory. A complete false.

One of the biggest advantages to 64bit is the doubling of the general purpose registers and floating point registers. And its has nothing to do with it being 64bit compared to 32bit, but as a side-effect of the "new" (if you can call it that even) architecture is more GP registers

x86 had 8 GP registers (eax,ebx,ecx,edx,ebp,esp,esi,edi). x86_64 has 16 (rax,rbx,rcx,rdx,rbp,rsp,rsi,rdi,r8,r9,r10,r11,r12,r13,r14,r15). Similarly with the 128-bit SSE registers, increased from 8 to 16.

These alone will provide performance improvements to almost any application other than "Hello World", and especially among heavy javascript sites like gmail, etc.

 

Yes IN SL it is 64 bit

 

Mod parent up. Oh wait, this isn't Slashdot.

 

And, of course, it resolves the Year 2038 Problem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem

 

Also,

Universal Binaries can contain both (32/64-bit) versions, eliminating the need for separate downloads.

 

Just in case anyone might rely on what they read here, that is not the whole story. Just like the Y2K problem wasn't caused by a lack of 16-bit integers.

32-bit systems can be 2038 compliant, 64-bit systems can be non-compliant. It is all about your software and libraries.

 

Re: 64 bit Firefox on Leopard

Development of 64-bit Firefox and plugins might get some boost through the release of Snow Leopard (which is almost upon us), since it encourages the use of 64-bit binaries by moving the core OS (and utilties) to 64-bit.

 

Look here: Bug 468509 - Gecko 64-bit Mac OS X support
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=468509

They work already a long time on this and nearly every bug which would prevent a "64-bit Snow Leopard version" is already fixed.

We will see likely a 64-bit version together with the Snow Leopard release or only somewhat later.

 

Well considering Carbon is a deprecated API, eventually Firefox would have no choice but to go to Cocoa. And Firefox already works in 64-bit builds of Linux. We might see 64-bit Mac builds by 3.6 if we've lucky