Google’s been testing 64-bit builds of its Chrome web browser for Windows for a few months. Now Chrome 37 has graduated from beta status and Chrome 64-bit is available to anyone running a 64-bit version of Windows.

chrome 37 64

Google says the new 64-bit version of Chrome is faster, more stable, and more secure than the 32-bit version… but Chrome 64-bit is still opt-in. If you’re running a 32-bit version of Chrome and use the automatic update feature, you’ll get a 32-bit version of Chrome 37.

You can download and install Chrome for Windows 64-bit manually. It’ll automatically install over your previous version of Google and import your apps, extensions, and other settings.

Google Chrome 37 also includes DirectWrite support on Windows for better font rendering, security fixes, and other updates.

Update: Not a fan of the new way fonts are rendered? You can disable DirectWrite by typing this in the location bar: chrome://flags/#disable-direct-write and then clicking the “Enable” link and then reboot the browser. Yes, I know it’s weird that you have to enable the disable flag, but that’s how it works. 

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14 replies on “Google Chrome browser for Windows is now 64-bit”

  1. I switched and fonts were horrible, so I added the Font Changer extension and switched my default fonts to Arial – not sure what it was before. Now it seems to be fine.

  2. Is even the Chromebook OS 64-bit? It appears there’s no point to this recompile. Even the most bloated, badly designed web page, e.g. Google Play My Music, doesn’t require that addressing space. The rollout must be to enable some totally misguided web app like SketchUp Cloud Edition

    1. I wish people would learn about what 64 bit means before sprouting inaccuracies that the only benefit is > 4 GB RAM. If you bothered to read the Google post, you’d find “For example, the VP9 codec that’s used in High Definition YouTube videos shows a 15% improvement in decoding performance.”

  3. I noticed the program installs in the same place as the 32bit version, which for Win 7/8 users is the Program Files(x86) folder. How come it doesn’t go into the Program Files folder? I know they are trying to use the old files so it can get back its bookmarks, apps, etc, but they could make an installer that moves it all to the 64bit folder. I guess I’m just nitpicking.

    1. I would be surprised if all the plugins have 64 bit binaries yet. Are you saying there’s no Chrome dir in the standard x64 folder?

      1. Exactly. Not sure if maybe it is because the x86 dir was already there, but I tried uninstalling it completely and installing the 64bit version, but it still put it in the x86 directory.

  4. I switched to 64-bit and the text rendering is bad (on some websites). I think this was the case with 32-bit Chrome 37 also. Chrome 36 32-bit was fine.

    1. Here’s a side by side comparison between Chome 64-bit (top) and Firefox (bottom). Horrible text rendering in Chrome! Especially when text is underlined. Text is also less sharper than Firefox.
      https://imgur.com/jSdJ6Yi

    1. Uses more than 3.9 MB RAM….so only reason not to switch now is that you do not have enough RAM. 32-bit used 3.7 to 3.9 MB while so far 64-bit is running between 4.3 and 4.5 MB RAM. But, can’t imagine any Windows 7/8 user having such low RAM.

    2. The question is still “why” not yet “why not.” A single Win32 process runs with a 2GB memory allocation ceiling, in theory; whereas Chrome launches multiple procs anyway, that’s why it’s chronically chrashing & chreating chritical faults like chrazy

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