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Firefox 43 comes with a 64bit version. But the one delivered with Ubuntu is 32bit.

Download Firefox link

but in this link there is an option to download 64bit version but its in tar.gz format. Does that mean firefox gets automatically updated and its resources gets added to the software sources or do I have to download again when a new version comes?

prab4th
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    If you're on 64-bit Ubuntu, you should have 64-bit Firefox. No need of tar.gz, etc. – DK Bose Dec 16 '15 at 01:34
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    "But the one delivered with Ubuntu is 32bit." Who said that? – muru Dec 16 '15 at 01:41
  • You should be running 64 if your OS is 64 bit linux, this isn't windows and you have no win32 directory to support 32 bit applications natively. – mchid Dec 16 '15 at 04:15
  • @mchid that's not at all how it works. x86_64 is by design backwards compatible with i386. There is no "compatibility layer" that allows 32 bit programs to run on Windows. I guarantee you on your 64 bit machine with Ubuntu you have many 32 bit programs running. If you have a 64 bit machine, you can run 32 bit applications, period. Regardless of OS. – bob Dec 16 '15 at 04:23
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    You are correct this is how windows works, however, if you try to download the 32 bit Firefox the way you downloaded the 64 bit version on ubuntu you'll immediately find out you don't have the 32 bit equivalent libs to run that version. Unlike windows, linux 64 is not 32 bit capable by default. – mchid Dec 16 '15 at 04:49
  • Of course, you can always install the necessary i386 libs but you'll have to add the foreign architecture or those versions won't even be available. – mchid Dec 16 '15 at 04:59

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The answers provided to you in comments by people such as mchid are dead wrong.

64 bit Firefox for Linux has existed for some time. What's new is 64 bit support for Windows.

You should use apt to list what packages you have installed, grep for Firefox, and see which architecture you have installed. If it's x86_64, you're good. If not, you should uninstall and sudo apt-get install Firefox-x86-64 (or whatever it is called in apt).

bob
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  • I think you misunderstood me because what you said is what I was trying to convey to the OP. I might've mistyped as I'm posting from an an android device so I'll review what I said but I think you have me wrong because I agree with what you said here. – mchid Dec 16 '15 at 04:53
  • I was trying to say that, unlike windows, which runs 32 bit Firefox by default, ubuntu almost always runs the 64 bit version of whatever app you install through apt-get or the software center. – mchid Dec 16 '15 at 04:56
  • @mchid: Okay. FYI, win32 folder (or system32 is what you mean?) has nothing to do with supporting the 32 bit architecture. Additionally, "linux is not 32 bit capable by default" is wrong. If the OS runs on a 64 bit processor, it is 32 bit compatible, period, since the AMD64 architecture is backwards compatible with i386. I guess some 32 bit software may have dependencies that were never upgraded to 64 bit, so they need 32 bit libraries installed to work, but that doesn't have to do with the architecture. – bob Dec 16 '15 at 07:04
  • see here for more info: http://askubuntu.com/questions/238006/why-does-my-64-bit-system-look-for-32-bit-repos/238043#238043 – bob Dec 16 '15 at 07:04
  • that is an old article and "multilib" as it was then no longer exists, haven't you ever ran into an ELF error? – mchid Dec 19 '15 at 21:48
  • here is an example and this applies to systems >=14.04: http://askubuntu.com/a/481962/167115 and here is another one with the ELF specific error http://askubuntu.com/a/454254/167115 – mchid Dec 19 '15 at 22:12