I just upgraded to 64-bit Firefox (Shiretoko), and it's amazing how much faster it runs and how much less memory it consumes, despite me having a gazillion tabs open <img src="http://forum.contractwebdevelopment.com/my-plugins/bb-smilies/default/icon_smile.gif" title=":)" class="bb_smilies" />

Only problem is that the Flash Player isn't working. Any chance of a 64-bit Flash player coming out?

Ok, I think we may have found a solution. It turns out that by using the Windows Vista/ 7 "Default Program" settings towards the top it appears that there is only a list of file extensions, not protocol associations (URL, HTTP).

However, if you scroll all the way to the bottom, you'll see the protocol associations (FTP, HTTP, HTTPS). In addition, there's a .url extension in the extension list which you can manually set to your browser of choice as well.

Simply manually browse to Shiretoko's (the Shiretoko codename is from Mozilla, incidentally) directory on your PC and select the "firefox.exe" application to open these Internet protocols. Finally, make sure you close and re-open your applications and the Shiretoko (Firefox 64-bit) browser, otherwise the link associations might still not work.

Unfortunately we haven't found a solution to the link opening issue yet. We'll post back when we do.

Thanks CWD. I definitely am seeing a performance boost, wow. Firefox 64-bit doesn't lag nearly as much as the 32-bit version did. It also uses less than half the memory (200MB instead of 500MB).

You're right about certain plugins - the Flash thing is a bit of a pain. I'm using IE for the Flash pages for now.

Another thing I've noticed is that links in emails, etc. no longer open up in my browser when I click on them. Is there any way to adjust this? I've got the new 64-bit Firefox (Shiretoko) set as my default browser under "Default Programs", and have it checked to do all things by default, but that doesn't seem to help...

There is indeed a 64-bit version of Firefox, although it's not official. But since Firefox is open source, anyone is allowed to work on and modify the code. This guy has been around for a while, and from what we can tell, the 64-bit version will give you a performance boost on a 64-bit machine. There's also 64-bit versions of Thunderbird available.

Something to note - you may not be able to run 32-bit plugins using the 64-bit version, and since it's not officially supported by Mozilla there's no guarantees it will be updated regularly, or that you'll get support if there's a problem (although so far, updates appear to be regular and reliable).

One glaring incompatibility we should point out is the lack of Adobe Flash Player support, at least in Windows, at the time of this writing. An alpha version of a 64-bit Linux player is available, but not yet a Windows version.

You can find the software at: http://wiki.mozilla-x86-64.com

Is there such a thing as a 64-bit version of Firefox? I've got a pretty hefty PC running 6GB of RAM and Windows 7 64-bit. All my apps seem to be running great, but when I get enough windows (tabs) open in Firefox it really slows things down. I've heard rumors that there's a 64-bit version of Firefox, but can't seem to find it on the Mozilla site.