Which Is The Most Used These Days? 32 Or 64-bit?

I've discovered this great 64-bit version of Firefox called Waterfox and it's led me to wonder if 64-bit systems are the norm these days, or if there's still a lot of people using 32-bit.

 

By far, 64-bit is the most widely used operating system these days. This is due mostly (I assume) because most computers have 4GB or more of RAM installed and to utilize the full 4GB and anything over 4GB, you must have a 64-bit OS installed. For this reason, most factory built systems have 64-bit Windows installed, even on systems with less than 4GB of RAM installed.

But most programs are still 32-bit because they work on both 32-bit and 64-bit systems - so development costs for just one version are cheaper. And 32-bit programs tend to run just as quickly in 64-bit environments anyway.

Understand Waterfox is NOT a 64-bit version of Firefox. It is just another of many alternative browsers based on the Mozilla platform. Pale Moon is another that is becoming popular and they also have a 64-bit version available through their download page.

But understand the use of 64-bit browsers offer few, if any, benefits. Besides as noted above, 64-bit "browsers" generally are NOT faster than their 32-bit counterparts because the network/Internet performance is typically the bottleneck in displaying webpages, not the browser.

But the biggest drawback to 64-bit browsers is 64-bit compatible add-on support is very limited.

 

Thanks for all the info. I can see I still have quite a bit more research to do.

 

In browser usage, there's really little reason for 'normal' users to go with x64. Disk space and RAM usage is greater, available plugins are fewer though security might be improved.

If you regularly hit ~2.8GB or higher memory usage with your regular x86 browser or your browsing sessions usually have uptimes into several days, you ought to consider using an x64 version.

Internally, x64 browsers can outperform their x86 counterparts as the OS doesn't need to use the 32-bit subsystem, they run with native OS code.

Read the Pale Moon x64 page.

 

Thanks. I don't think my memory usage has ever gone into the GBs with Firefox. As for my browsing sessions usually having uptimes into several days, I know that means something but I have no idea what.

I tried out Pale Moon x64 but I didn't notice any difference between it and the 32-bit version so I just uninstalled it. Kept the 32-bit version though.

 

I prefer IE so IE11 is my default browser. But I also have Pale Moon and Chrome installed - but I mainly use them to see if a site I am having problems with is due to the site, or IE (it usually is the site). And of course Edge comes with W10 and if speed is your top priority, Edge is pretty darn quick.

 

It turns out I'll be sticking with Firefox after all. It turns out all my problems with it, which had to do with the way it plays videos, were caused by the VLC Web Plugin. I was gonna test the 64-bit version of the VLC Web Plugin with Waterfox so I thought I'd uninstall the 32-bit version from Firefox because I don't really need it. As soon as I did, Firefox's native video playback SHOT up. NO freezing, NO stickiness, NO pausing. PERFECT. It now loads animated gifs much faster too. I've spent the last several months wondering why Firefox had suddenly declined in video and animation playback when I hadn't changed anything about the way I encode videos or create gifs, and all this time it was that bloody plugin was slowing everything down. Well good riddance to it.