Linux was the first to get a 64 bit version of Chrome followed by Mac. Windows was always third priority for Chrome developers and hence almost any windows user as of this writing should be on 32 bit chrome. Also the chrome website by default shows the 32 bit download link.

Now that Google has released a 64 bit version of chrome, it makes much sense to upgrade. Here are some reasons that will tempt you-

  • Faster - Taking advantage of 64 bit computing computing capabilities make 64 bit chrome faster compared to it's 32 bit peer. (25% speed improvement according to lifehacker)
  • More Secure - By using some of the security features only available in 64 bit windows, 64 bit Chrome is more secure.
  • Better Performance - Decoding performance on YouTube (HTML5) improves by about 15% in 64 bit chrome according to Google.
  • More Stable - Crash rates of the the renderer which handles web content are almost half compared to 32-bit Chrome.

Install or Upgrade to 64 bit Chrome.

Important: You can only install the 64 bit version if you have a 64 bit version of windows. To find out, right click on "My Computer" and select "Properties".

If you are newly installing chrome or want to upgrade from 32 bit to 64 bit, both involves installing the 64 bit version. If you already have the 32 bit version on your PC, chrome installer will overwrite the files and replace it with the 64 bit version.

To install, just visit this 64 bit chrome download link and click the download button. Run the downloaded installer and follow the instructions that comes up. You can verify the 64 bit installation by opening chrome and loading "chrome://chrome".

64 bit chrome install or upgrade

Post Install Tips

  • Google doesn't let you install both 32 bit and 64 bit chrome versions at the same time. If you really want both, you can install chrome again from canary or dev channels. These are development versions of chrome which can co-exist with released chrome versions.
  • If you want to switch back to 32 bit, just uninstall chrome and install 32 bit chrome again.
  • For most part, upgrading from 32 bit to 64 bit should be transparent. Your profiles, bookmarks, browsing history and any other data should be intact after upgrading. But to be sure, you could take a backup of your chrome data before running the installer. Chrome data files can be found by opening the following location in windows explorer - "%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data".