Ars Technica said yesterday that Mozilla needs to make 64-bit Firefox on Windows a high priority. I agree with this completely. With web browsers, you can’t have too much security, and Firefox on Windows is a big target.
There are issues with going 64-bit, as the article states, but there are workarounds. One phrase I’ve heard frequently is that going 64-bit doesn’t necessarily mean better performance. And yes, that’s true, though there are also performance benefits to not running out of memory when you have a lot of tabs open. But address space randomization is something we need, and it’s worth giving up a little bit of performance in order to get that.
I find it curious that Mozilla is concerned about the size of the userbase, and thinks that not having a 64-bit browser on Windows isn’t affecting the size of that userbase. Like the Ars article says, there are more 64-bit Windows users out there than there are Mac and Linux users combined.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.