Public bug reported: Binary package hint: firefox
Firefox should be provided only as a 32bit binary even when the underlying OS is 64bit enabled. Reasons for that are: 1. Many plugins for firefox are provided as 32bit only. These plugins are usually proprietary and no source code available. (one example is shockwave flash, but even Sun's JRE plugin is a good example, as if it was feasible to provide the plugin for 64bit, Sun would have done so long ago). 2. It is a waste of memory to use firefox with 64bit address space. firefox does not need this "extra" amount of memory and there's no added value of doing so. 3. firefox is not widely tested on x86_64, because of the above articles and for the fact that x86_64 is a young architecture. this is just a sure recipe to cause bugs. ProblemType: Bug Architecture: amd64 Date: Fri Mar 9 22:27:08 2007 DistroRelease: Ubuntu 7.04 Uname: Linux meydele 2.6.20-9-generic #2 SMP Sun Feb 25 22:59:06 UTC 2007 x86_64 GNU/Linux ** Affects: firefox (Ubuntu) Importance: Undecided Status: Unconfirmed -- firefox should be 32bit even on 64bit enabled OS https://launchpad.net/bugs/90947 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs