Firefox on Windows has been a 32-bit affair until now. Mozilla today released Firefox 64-bit for Windows to offer gains in performance for users with 64-bit systems. The new software should get improved security, greater app compatibility and other upgrades that come with the added headroom.

Firefox 64-bit for Windows, by design, has limited support for plugins so you will notice that certain sites requiring plugins that worked in previous 32-bit versions of Firefox might not work in this 64-bit version. Mozilla intends to remove support for most NPAPI plugins in Firefox by the end of 2016.

To download and install Firefox 64-bit for Windows go to the Firefox All Systems page.

In addition, Mozilla has enhanced the Private Browsing feature of Firefox allowing it to block a wider range of web trackers.

Mozilla recently introduced Private Browsing with Tracking Protection to give you control over the data that third parties receive from you online. The list of trackers blocked by Tracking Protection in Private Browsing is based on the blocklist provided by Disconnect.

A basic protection list is on by default in Private Browsing with Tracking Protection and it shields against many ad, analytics and social trackers. If you want increased protection from tracking, Firefox now allows you to choose a 'strict' protection blocklist which will block additional content trackers such as those often found in video, photo and embeddable content. Choosing this list comes with a tradeoff because Disconnect has received reports from users of some sites not working properly and in some cases being unusable, when this 'strict' list is used.