After a long beta phase, Mozilla today finally released the 64-bit version of its Firefox browser for Windows. At the same time the developer also released 21 patches for vulnerabilities in the browser.
The 64-bit version should provide improved performance for web applications and games on 64-bit computers. The company warns that not all plugins are supported by this version. Plugins that work on the 32-bit version of the browser might not work on the 64-bit browser, according to the developer. The 64-bit version is available for Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 and can be downloaded from Mozilla.org.
The release comes together with Firefox 43 of which 21 vulnerabilities have been patched of which five were marked critical. In these cases an attacker could execute random code on the computer such as installing malware when the user visits a hacked or malicious website.
As usual, updates can be done through Firefox's automatic update feature.
Previously only a fork of Firefox was available in 64-bit. Development of the browser called Waterfox started in 2011. It took Mozilla four years to get a 64-bit ready it found stable enough for release to the general public.
