How to switch from 32-bit to 64-bit Firefox
Revision Information
- Revision id: 151793
- Created:
- Creator: AliceWyman
- Comment: updated note on automatic migration
- Reviewed: Yes
- Reviewed:
- Reviewed by: AliceWyman
- Is approved? Yes
- Is current revision? No
- Ready for localization: Yes
- Readied for localization:
- Readied for localization by: AliceWyman
Revision Source
Revision Content
This article only applies to Firefox on Windows.
Note: Mozilla began to automatically switch users from 32-bit Firefox to 64-bit Firefox, with the update to Firefox version 56.0.1 on October 9, 2017. For more information, see this Mozilla blog post and the Firefox Win64 Mozilla Wiki. If you prefer to use 32-bit Firefox, see How to opt out of 32-bit Firefox migration to 64-bit.
The 64-bit version of Firefox can provide better performance than the 32-bit version. Want to switch to the 64-bit version of Firefox? Just install the 64-bit version and uninstall the 32-bit version. Your Firefox user data (passwords, bookmarks, settings, extensions and themes, etc.) will not be removed.
- 64-bit Firefox requires a 64-bit version of Windows 7 or higher. To find out if you are running a 64-bit version of Windows, visit this Microsoft help page.
- 64-bit Firefox only supports the Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight NPAPI plugins. See this article about changes in Firefox plugin support.
Follow these steps to switch to 64-bit Firefox:
- Go to this Mozilla Firefox download page and click on the Windows 64-bit download link.
- Run the setup file you've just downloaded and follow the prompts to install the 64-bit version of Firefox.
- Close Firefox.
- Now it's time to remove the 32-bit version. Open the Windows menu and click on . Open the panel, then select the tab panel.
- Scroll down the list of appsprograms until you find the Mozilla Firefox item that contains x86 in the name. Select it, and click .
- Follow the prompts in the Uninstall Wizard to complete the removal of the 32-bit version.
