[OpenIndiana-discuss] Firefox 32bit future

[Nikola M]

On 01/25/18 07:57 PM, Alan Coopersmith wrote:
> On 01/25/18 10:40 AM, russell wrote:
>> Is there any immediate danger of Mozilla retiring the 32bit version of Firefox?
> I believe the most immediate item of concern is that Firefox now uses code
> written in Rust, so you'll be limited to platforms that the Rust compiler
> generates code for, and I don't know if anyone is bothering to do 32-bit code
> generation for Solaris/illumos in Rust.
>
> Of course, with the elimination of Netscape plugin support, there's little
> reason to still use a 32-bit version of Firefox.

Previously the reason for using 32-bit Firefox, even on 64-bit 
platforms, was low to negligent difference in speed (or even faster 
32-bit one), better plugin compatibility support and lower memory 
footprint. (And who needs more then 4GB for a web browser?)

Now it could be "only" lower memory footprint in RAM as benefit of 
32-bit FF, that could show significant,
yet there is still to find test results with 64-bit FF showing much 
faster then 32bit one, but I suspect it would be the case.

Ulike x86-64, where 64-bit apps are generally faster the 32-bit, on 
SPARC 32-bit apps are faster (and use less RAM),
because they.. move less bits. So that's one another mention about 32 vs 
64bit in general.
Not that SPARC port is moving too fast, but it's like, second big 
platform for illumos distros.