64-Bit Chrome for Windows is now available! It comes as part of Chrome 37 which is now in the stable channel.
However, you won’t be automatically upgraded to the 64-bit version even if you use 64-bit Windows 7 or Windows 8. You will have to manually install 64-bit Chrome 37 from this page. You can also click the “Windows 64-bit” from Chrome’s download page.
Google explains the benefits of 64-bit Chrome by saying:
“64-bit Chrome offers many benefits for speed, stability and security. Our measurements have shown that the native 64-bit version of Chrome has improved speed on many of our graphics and media benchmarks. For example, the VP9 codec that’s used in High Definition YouTube videos shows a 15% improvement in decoding performance. Stability measurements from people opted into our Canary, Dev and Beta 64-bit channels confirm that 64-bit rendering engines are almost twice as stable as 32-bit engines when handling typical web content”
So why is 64-bit Chrome opt-in? It doesn’t support 32-bit NPAPI plugins. This could be a deal-breaker for some who might rely on such plugins, but Chrome is planning to remove NPAPI support in the coming months anyway. Until then, the 32-bit Chrome will still be the default.
Chrome’s “known issues” page informs that the 64-bit plugins for Java and Silverlight work properly, but the plugins for Google Earth and Google Voice don’t work because they are 32-bit plugins.
Regardless, I’m excited about this news. Hooray for progress toward 64-bit web browsing!
