Waterfox, the Firefox alternative for 64bit Windows

Hi everyone,

Lets get started...

Almost everyone here must've come across Firefox at some point in their glorious internet browsing campaign. Firefox has always been one of the best browsers available to the public. Its fast, sleek, and can be loaded with tons of free add-ons. Not to mention its open source and is continuously updated by Mozilla.

I've been a faithful Firefox user since Firefox 2.x up until Firefox 8.0.1. However I recently switched from a 32-bit Win 7 to a 64-bit Win 7 installation and noticed that Firefox 8 was not as stable and responsive as it was before. I has frequent crashes and hangups using Firefox and the general browsing experience felt degraded. Multiple open tabs caused my browser's memory usage go off the charts(~800mb) and the GUI became very sluggish.

So I googled for alternatives and possible solutions to the problems. I found Waterfox!

Waterfox is a 64-bit browser compiled from the Firefox source code. It looks the same as Firefox and offers the same features and surpasses it in many places.

Advantages: WATERFOX vs. FIREFOX

• Completely compatible with current firefox addons.
• Auto-update support.
• Waterfox and Firefox both can be installed on the same system. However only one can be can be used at a time since Waterfox uses the existing Firefox profile for all its data. Hence while using Waterfox all your add-ons, bookmarks, browsing history and caches will be imported. (I personally uninstalled Firefox before I installed Waterfox, but many of my friends that both browsers work just fine)
• Its faster and more responsive and has better performance and memory management than the 32bit firefox.

Disadvantages: WATERFOX vs. FIREFOX

• Waterfox versions are recompiled for every stable firefox release. Hence you will not get the latest version along with the Firefox releases. The developer will have to recompile Waterfox and release it later. However with the auto-updater that shouldn't be much of an inconvenience.
• 32bit Plugins(not add-ons) will not be compatible with Waterfox. You will have to get those plugins from the internet. Waterfox has the plugin finder just like Firefox and will download plugins when needed.

I have been using Waterfox for a week now and it has been exceptional. Its not the best browser out there, but for die-hard Firefox fans like me its probably one of the better ones. Google Chrome still remains the best overall browser and beats Firefox(and Waterfox) in most benchmarks.

If you want to download Waterfox then follow the link below.

http://waterfoxproj.sourceforge.net/

NOTE: For people who'd prefer waiting for an official Firefox 64bit version, Mozilla is already working on a 64bit version for Firefox. It will soon released as an alpha or beta version.
 
This is my first blog, so I'm a bit nervous. Please do leave your feedback regarding the article and any other improvements I can make to the content. 

Thanks for reading! :D

PS: I apologize for the lack of proper benchmarks. I will upload proper benchmarks soon.