Google has begun working on a 64-bit version of Chrome for Linux.

“The V8 team did some amazing work this quarter building a working 64-bit port,” notes Chrome engineer Dean McNamee. “After a handful of changes on the Chromium side, I’ve had Chromium Linux building on 64-bit for the last few weeks.”

Chromium is the open-source project underpinning the Chrome browser, while V8 is Google’s custom built JavaScript renderer – which was created in order to give developers plenty of room to tinker and optimise. McNamee went on to share his instructions on how Chromium users could switch their browser to the 64-bit V8 port.

The arrival of a 64-bit version of Chrome on Linux rather than Windows caused a few raised eyebrows among developers, with one post, penned by Marcus Greenblatt, asking: “Out of curiosity, what work remains to support a 64-bit build on Windows?”

The post was answered by programmer Marc-Antoine Ruel who claimed the project required “motivation, probably also some sandbox fixes and a gyp [programming tools] update.”

The project casts light on how important the various browser makers consider the switch to 64-bit. Microsoft already offers a 64-bit version of Internet Explorer 8 with Windows 7, while Apple is readying a 64-bit version of Safari for release with its forthcoming Snow Leopard OS. Opera has yet to dip a toe in 64-bit waters, while Mozilla has claimed that a 64-bit release is simply too difficult given the sheer amount of plugins it would break.

ANI