Firefox 32 Bit vs 64 Bit – Which is Better? [Performance Test]
Mozilla Firefox has been around for over a decade and has built up a huge following of loyal users in that time. It used to run Internet Explorer close for top Windows web browser but these days has slipped to distant third behind Internet Explorer and more recently Google Chrome. There’s a lot to like about Firefox with the thousands of available add-ons, but also it’s had it’s fair share of problems with various performance and memory related issues over the years.
An area where Firefox fell behind is making the browser a full 64-bit application to work better with 64-bit versions of Windows. A well coded 64-bit application should theoretically perform better and more efficiently than it’s 32-bit counterpart on a 64-bit operating system, usually at the expense of a bit more memory. Internet Explorer has had a 64-bit mode for several years, Chrome also has a version that was released in 2014. Firefox was the only major browser to not have a 64-bit version, until recently.
Since version 42, Firefox has an official 64-bit version that you can download and install instead of the 32-bit version, although it’s currently not available on the main Firefox download page and is a bit hidden away in the Mozilla release pages. With this long awaited release, the question now is, does the 64-bit Firefox perform any better than the 32-bit version?
To find out we’ve put Firefox through a number of well known benchmarks and a few of our own to see what the differences are between the 32-bit and 64-bit versions. We’ve included Waterfox which takes the Firefox source code and compiles it with 64-bit optimizations so it should run more efficiently and faster on 64-bit Windows computers. For comparison Firefox Nightly 64-bit has also been included to see if test versions are improving in speed and efficiency.
To run the benchmarks each browser was installed on a clean and fully updated Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-bit. The hardware was an AMD Phenom II X4 955 CPU @3.2Ghz with 4GB of 1333Mhz memory and a 7200RPM HDD. We tested Firefox 42.0 32-bit, Firefox 42.0 64-bit, Firefox Nightly 45.0a1 64-bit and Waterfox 40.1.0, all settings were left at their defaults.1. JetStream
The JetStream test is from Webkit and the successor to Sunspider. It’s a series of Javascript benchmarks covering a range of workloads and scenarios, including tests from Octane 2 and Sunspider. Each test runs itself 3 times and an average score is given.
2. Kraken
Kraken was developed by Mozilla themselves but this test adds the time taken to complete each test together and gives a total score in milliseconds, so lower is better.
3. Peacekeeper
The company behind 3DMark and PCMark, Futuremark, developed this benchmarking tool. It tests things like DOM operations, HTML5, text parsing and rendering. Peacekeeper is no longer supported by Futuremark but still works.
4. Octane 2.0
Octane is Google’s own Javascript testing suite which replaces the popular V8 benchmark offering 9 additional tests and 4 more than Octane version 1.
5. BrowserMark
The BrowserMark suite tests a number of areas including browser resize, page load and requests speed, Javascript performance and tests for DOM, CSS and graphics speed. It should automatically choose your nearest regional server, manually select one if you want a different region.
6. RoboHornet
RoboHornet is a relatively new benchmark test and still in alpha. The default Core suite tests many areas including tables, DOM, CSS, canvas, scrolling and Javascript.
7. Dromaeo
This is another testing suite produced by Mozilla and runs a number of its own tests, Sunspider tests and V8 tests. Each benchmark runs itself at least 5 times which explains why the whole process takes around 15 minutes to complete. We used the Recommended Tests option.
8. Single Tab Memory Usage
This memory test is rather simple, Firefox is opened and left at the standard start page, after about 10 seconds to let things settle, the used memory for the Firefox.exe process is read in Task Manager.
Note: Firefox Nightly is at a disadvantage in these memory tests because it loads an additional plugin-container.exe which rises and falls in memory usage as the number of tabs changes. As it consumes extra RAM this process is included in the results.
9. 5 Tabs Open Memory Usage
This test is again quite simple, the Raymond.cc homepage is loaded into 5 tabs and then after a few seconds the memory usage of Firefox is recorded.
10. 25 Tabs Open Memory Usage
Similar to the test above apart from 25 tabs are open at once.
11. Application Start Time
Measures the time taken in seconds to load Firefox or Waterfox for the first time after a reboot (cold start).
Results and Summary
As you can see from the results in all 11 tests above, the 32-bit version of Firefox won an impressive 8 of the tests, only losing its number one position in the Kraken and Peacekeeper benchmarks and the cold start time. The memory usage results were also better and if you scale them up, the differences between 32-bit and 64-bit versions with multiple large website tabs open could be hundreds or even thousands of Megabytes. 64-bit could help if your browser constantly consumes several Gigabytes of RAM but they are mostly extreme circumstances.
Waterfox, which has been around for a few years and specifically compiled for 64-bit, cannot compete with the 32-bit version. The Nightly Firefox does show some improvements over the official 64-bit release, so things should improve over time. Any Firefox 64-bit version still appears to be very much a work in progress and it’s difficult to recommend installing any x64 version if you are specifically looking for higher performance. We should see some performance improvements in the future, but Firefox 64-bit doesn’t appear to give you a faster browsing experience at this time.
I have a slow (1.40 GHz) laptop running Windows 8.0 64 bit. Usable RAM is 3.57 GB. System rating is 3.5 Windows Experience Index.
I install Firefox 64 bit quantum but haven’t noticed any improvement over Firefox 56 64 bit.
I’m wondering if would be better to go back to a 32 bit version of Firefox.
I’ve also been updating old 32 bit versions of apps to 64 bit version when they’re available. Maybe this too is a mistake.
Anyone have any helpful advice – other than that I should retire this poor old laptop and get with the times?
Thanks.
Tested on FF v.56.0: still x32 slightly or noticeable better than x64, and with all the limtations -> not worth to switch from x32 to x64 version :/
I switched from 32 bit to 64 about a month ago and haven’t had any issues for the moment. I did noticed that Java is not supported in the 64 bit version. Why is this and how can this affect me??? I have Windows 7-64. Just curious and should I go back to the 32 version or am I safe using the 64 bit version?
To confusing I will leave it till they print proper information about it
Installed Firefox x64 bit and have no issues it seems to perform much better than the x32 bit version. Not using any tests just real world use. The only plugin is Flash, that is okay with me. Pale Moon x64 bit is also installed and it just seems a bit faster. Again no tests to back up my observations or experience.
Mozilla Firefox 53.0 (64bit) on Microsoft Windows 10
Released on April 19, 2017
JetStream(v1.1) 143.19 ± 5.3145
Kraken(v1.1) 1197.1ms +/- 3.2%
I just tested 2 of benchmark but the result tells us the performance getting hilariously better.
I don’t get, why Mozilla doesn’t push 64 Bit more as the mainly offered download.
Of course it makes only sense to fokus on develpment, when enough people have installed it. So they should push it al little more.
Persons with a 64-Win should automatically install the 64Bit version….
Persons with FF-32 and Win 64 should be reminded by a button from time to time to change to 64 bit with next autoupdate…….
Because 64-Bit sucks? Have you read the article?
I’m using 32-Bit FF on 64-bit Windows 7 with 16 GB RAM. Works wonderfully.
From: developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Benchmarking
“Many Firefox builds have a diagnostic tool that causes crashes to happen sooner and produce much more actionable information, but also slow down regular usage substantially. In particular, “GC poisoning” is used in all debug builds, and in optimized nightly builds (but not opt developer edition or beta builds). The poisoning can be disabled by setting the environment variable JSGC_DISABLE_POISONING=1″
So, open a new text file and type:
set JSGC_DISABLE_POISONING=1
“C:\Program Files\Nightly\firefox.exe”
Save as ‘Go_Nightlyx64.bat’ (or your favorite file name)
Run this and then run the benchmarks on Nightlyx64 in order to get a clean set of performance numbers.
I use 64bit FF but I am disappointed in it. What usually kills my browser experience is when FF is using over approx 2.5GB ram. I have multiple windows with multiple tabs and never close FF except to make it work again. FF enters a state where it wont exit and has to be killed (thank god for session savers). This problem occurs when javascript uses too much memory. Firefox (32 and 64bit) has very poor memory handling for javascript. FF becomes unstable when javascript has used too much memory. It almost seems as if the FF64bit release still has a 32bit javascript engine. Problematic sites are Facebook and Google’s gmail.
Internet Explorer 64bit actually has be best handling of javascript memory, easily allocating 5GB+ and releasing it again. Google Chrome 64bit for certain only has a 32bit javascript engine.
I’ve found that the 64 bit version uses much less CPU when it has multiple windows open compared to the 32 bit version.
I’ve made the test myself on firefox 47, in a computer with an i7 6700k, windows 10, 32gb of ddr4 ram, and the 64bit version of firefox is a bit faster than the 32bit
(on jetstream, kraken, octane and browsermark)
Good article. looks like 32 bit for stretch then.
I just installed 64 bit firefox and it is loading websites much faster than my 32 bit did. Loading websites is nearly instantaneous. I am very impressed. I have an i7 4790K CPU and 16 gigs of ram and a GTX 780 video card. It may have nothing to do with it but the graphics seem sharper and clearer. Shrugs shoulders.
I would suggest there may have been an issue with your 32-bit install if you notice the 64-bit version is much faster and pages “look” better. I also have a an i7 with 16GB and a GTX 970 but 64-bit Firefox is not faster than the 32-bit for me. Also don’t forget the tests are done on lower end hardware so differences will be magnified.
Just did an informal test on 64bit Windows 10 on Core2DUO E8400 CPU/4GB ram and Firefox 32 did “feel” faster. Specifically loading a new website, and scrolling up/down once the site was rendered,felt faster/smoother. Seems they highly optimized the32bit version.
Yes, you’re right, during testing the 32-bit just felt faster and the scores here just back up that. 64-bit has a long way to go before it performs better.
Very impressive results, will stick to x32 FF… thanks for this great article!
I’m trying the nightly and it seems fine until now, except by some complements.
Thank you for the research, Raymond. I particularly like the two memory
usage stats. My problems, like many others I’ve read, are the
extension incompatibility issues that are getting worse with each
Firefox update. Developers can’t seem to keep up, especially since they are mostly free.
Even for Thunderbird, I just made a substantial donation after
contacting the developer and pleading for an update to work with TB 8.
I’m happy to donate, but it could get rather expensive for those that
are broken after FF & TB updates and don’t have updates or similar
extensions to use instead. I’ve tried workarounds (there’s at least one
that you wrote), but failed on this one.
I do have an extensive email archive of your past blogs and love your
website’s new look. Thanks for all the help you’ve given us all.
Thanks again for your valuable research:)
How about while just using it to surf and maybe watching you tube videos, Does the 64 bit versions feel any different, like do they generally feel faster and more responsive? Because I don’t think differences in milliseconds would be detectable with the naked eye. Also I often have a lot of tabs open would the 64 bit be worse for this? I have a Core i5 with 4 gigs of ram.
Also I use “Xmarks” and “Ad block plus” and “Reminder Fox” would these extensions work with 64 bit?
I am stop using 64 bit browser since the youtube or flash video is not supported.
thanks. Very helpful. I was just thinking about using Waterfox but I
think i’ll just stick with Pale Moon for now. It would be great if you
could perform a test for Pale Moon too.
Yep, seconded your motion…been using Pale Moon x64 for a while
@google-80ca841e9e04d431f6e015123a3a1c85:disqus there is 64 bits Flashplayers out now !
Thanks Raymond for an awesome blog !