Comments on: Someone Please Explain This

By: Eric Burke

Eric Burke — Sat, 03 May 2008 21:26:34 +0000

We’re not talking about a 64-bit browser running a 32-bit plugin. We’re talking about a 32-bit browser running a 64-bit plugin.

By: Tom Chiverton

Tom Chiverton — Sat, 03 May 2008 17:36:02 +0000

It’s perfectly possible for a 64bit browser to use a 32bit plugin.
Konqueror can do this for Flash, for instance.

By: Anonymous Coward

Anonymous Coward — Sat, 03 May 2008 08:45:10 +0000

A wild guess would be that the VM is 64 bit and can therefore not be loaded into a 32 bit application like Safari.

By: Ben Smith-Mannschott

Ben Smith-Mannschott — Sat, 03 May 2008 06:57:49 +0000

Yes. Safari is 32bit. And there’s no good reason for it to be 64bit. Surf many 4GB web pages? The real brain-damage is that apple’s Java1.6 is 64-bit only. What’s up with that? So, if you’re application depends on features introduced with 1.6 you can forget about write-once-run-anywhere.

$ file Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari
Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari: Mach-O universal binary with 2 architectures
Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari (for architecture i386): Mach-O executable i386
Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari (for architecture ppc7400): Mach-O executable ppc

By: Weiqi Gao

Weiqi Gao — Sat, 03 May 2008 02:29:40 +0000

According to Alex (http://www.weiqigao.com/blog/2008/04/30/swt_detractors_rejoice.html#comment1209565827839), that’s apparently the case.

By: Eric Burke

Eric Burke — Sat, 03 May 2008 01:59:31 +0000

So is he trying to say that Safari, a 32-bit app, cannot support the new JRE, which is 64-bit?

By: Bob Lee

Bob Lee — Sat, 03 May 2008 01:34:18 +0000

The bytecode is still the same.

Is Safari still 32-bit?