It's already very hard to keep up with plugins that don't work after upgrading (either because they don't or the version check says so). Many developers are already accustomed to being on top of this. That said, 64-bit should at least be an option for them. I only recently upgraded to FireFox 5. I used 4 because some plugins wouldn't work with 5. Just recently discovered it's not too hard to have multiple FireFox installations. So now instead of an unhappy medium of 4, I have 3.6 and 5 installed. I already had 2 separate profiles on the same Firefox 4. They serve 2 different purposes (different plugins and profiles). I even use them side by side in separate processes with the -no-remote parameter. I say let 64-bit move forward and let the plugins catch up. Businesses and schools often have outdated systems and hardly use plugins anyway.

Firefox 64-bit is here-

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Download-64-bit-Firefox-8-Preview-for-x64-Windows-7-Vista-XP-211824.shtml

Direct link -

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-mozilla-central/firefox-8.0a1.en-US.win64-x86_64.installer.exe

The 64 version of firefox can be found here [http://nightly.mozilla.org/]

Now there is a 64 bit version of adobe flash and silverlight, both stills in beta, but I think it will work. You can use a nightly build.

Silverlight http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/future/

Adobe Flash labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer11.html

Also Java 64-bit

http://www.java.com/en/download/faq/java_win64bit.xml

Hurray, 64-bit Silverlight. Soon Mozilla will run out of excuses as to why there's no OFFICIAL release and only preview builds.

Mozilla will be lagging, soon we'll be using flash 11 and silverlight 5. Users will be able to get their netflix fix in 64-bit. Since the average user won't be hunting down test builds people might just be installing other browsers.

try pale moon. it's firefox + optimizations, for both x86 and x64.

http://www.palemoon.org/

you'll have to manually copy your firefox profile from %APPDATA%\Mozilla to %APPDATA%\Moonchild Productions\Pale Moon, then it works fine.

there's also waterfox, which seems to be a bit more compatible with stock firefox.

http://waterfoxproj.sourceforge.net/

Unlike many of the posters here, I'm not an Ubergeek who has lots of time to play with browsers. I teach internet courses, so I need a stable browser. I HATE Explorer, but I am afraid I will have to resort to it. I have a 64 bit machine, and Firefox is sometimes unstable or all too often slow as hell. Java is iffy. I can't afford to mess around like this. It's costing me too much time and occasionally functionality. I kept looking for a 64 bit Firefox, and I'm stunned & dismayed that there just isn't one. I don't know who I am more angry with - Mozilla or Explorer!

Okay, so FF8 is not 64 bit? And many links on Fox News do not work because of that or seemingly because of that... is that a Java issue (wrong Java, 64 bit not working with ver 8 of FF?) or something else. I don't like IE but the 'comment' section of all articles on FoxNews "does" show up in IE and so it goes.

FF needs to get a 64 bit going... thanks