Choosing a Firefox CPU architecture for Windows OS

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This article is intended for IT administrators who wish to set up Firefox on the computers within their organization.

On both ESR and rapid release channels we offer Firefox builds for both 32 and 64 bit CPU architecture. We recommend using Firefox 64 bit builds in compatible environments although system administrators should select the CPU architecture that best matches their constraints. In any case, migrating from 32 bit Firefox to 64 bit Firefox should be done after significant QA cycles.

Desktop compatibility

Firefox 32 bit Firefox 64 bit
32 bit OS Supported Not supported
64 bit OS Supported Supported
Systems with more than 2 GB RAM Supported Supported
Systems with 2 GB RAM or less Supported Supported but not recommended
(lower performance)

Benefits and limitations of 64 bit Firefox

Firefox 32 bit Firefox 64 bit
Lower crash rates No Yes (we observed a crash rate reduction
in the order of 50% to 60% after migrating
release channel users to 64 bit Firefox)
Higher security (ASLR) No Yes
32 bit only extensions Yes No (vendors may have 64 bit compatible
extensions though)
Citrix XenApp users willing to use 64 bit Firefox, see 64-bit Firefox crashes with Citrix's XenApp VM.

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