Javaun Moradi announced earlier in bug 1181014 (this was the bug about how to ‘market’ the Win64 builds on Mozilla.org):
Folks, we’ve decided not to release win64 builds in Fx40. We have many improvements coming in 41 — sandboxing and NPAPI whitelisting, and possibly some other fixes — and it makes sense to hold. I as much as anyone want to see 64 launch, but given the enthusiasm, it’s better to wait for a product that has safety and polish 41 will bring.
He also commented in bug 1180792 (enabling Win64 builds on release channel):
Our original plan was a quiet soft-launch in 40, and to make
more noise in 41 when we have added safety.
There are two big reasons I can think of why Mozilla has made this decision regarding Win64 Firefox release:
- There had been some concerns expressed that pushing out the Win64 Firefox on August 11th (Firefox 40) before it was really ready would make it seem Mozilla was just releasing it because everyone else was pushing out a 64-Bit Windows browser because of Windows 10.
- There won’t be as much user shock/surprise/anger when they discover that Java and SilverLight suddenly don’t work in the Win64 Firefox 41 as there would have been had they updated from the Win64 Firefox 40.
