Once upon a time was a little company called Mozilla who had a browser that knew some tricks no other browser did. After a while the Mozilla foundation decided to split up several projects and the Firefox browser was born, again capable of things that no other browser was doing at the time. The other browsers were quick to pick up on these tricks and to emulate them, but Firefox held onto a respectable share of overall usage which slowly eroded as other browsers came onto the scene to steal away some of that share. Apparently this depressed Firefox as it decided to start on a steady diet of add-ons and stuffing extras in below the belt which eventually caused such bloating as to make those who cared about Firefox suggest it might want to think about slimming down a bit or at least wear something a little larger, maybe a size 64.
Instead, according to various sources such as DailyTech, Firefox has decided to dump all development of a 64-bit version of its browser. IE10 supports 64-bit, Opera supports 64-bit and Chrome does on Linux and is working on a Windows version for the near future, leaving Firefox in the company of Lynx. While the news stories are specific to the Firefox browser, it leaves one suspicious about the Firefox OS which is being developed for mobile devices; just what features are going to be abandoned as too hard to continue developing for.
"Fans of the non-profit Mozilla Foundation have waited… and waited… and waited more still, for Mozilla's popular Firefox browser to add 64-bit support. With pickup of 64-bit SKUs of Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) Windows operating system rapidly accelerating, it certainly seemed a 64-bit browser would be just around the corner.
Instead Mozilla has made the curious decision to pull the plug on the long-delayed project, while offering only small clues as to why the decision was made."
Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
- The 3D Printing Wars Begin @ MAKE:Blog
- Samsung brews half-asleep OCTO CORE phone brain MONSTER @ The Register
- Win OCZ RevoDrive 3 PCIe SSD and Kitguru fans! @ Kitguru
Dedication, loyalty, selfless
Dedication, loyalty, selfless sacrifice. Posting tech news stories on Thanksgiving. However, I must inform you that you are buzzed because you misspelled the first word lol.
Shame on them. I bet FF would
Shame on them. I bet FF would be less sluggish if it has those extra 64-bit extensions.
I just wanted to point out that there is a 64-bit Firefox based browser.
http://www.palemoon.org/
I actually heard of it through an article on this site.
It is my new favorite browser, until 64-bit chrome at least.
Forgive my ignorance, but
Forgive my ignorance, but what is the advantage to a 64-bit browser?
I used 64bit IE and noticed no change in performance even with 30 tabs open (my home brew speed test).
The only thing I noticed at the time was something I tried to do was not supported in a 64-bit browser and I had to go back to the 32-bit.
It would be nice to see
It would be nice to see 32-bit retired except for certain legacy programs, much like 16-bit did when 32-bit was introduced. That way we are programming for multicore 64-bit primarily across the board.