I have seen the v1.7 on that "other" site, and 1.64 here.
what is happening, i assume there are now 2 totally separate software forks?
is either better than the other, or just a fork as such????
Two separate forks. You'll need to compare them individually.
For example, 1.6.4 has the board and library managers, 1.7.3 has "Arduino Zero Pro" support.
The Arduino.org forked the Arduino IDE from Arduino.cc and added support for specific Arduino.org boards.
However, Arduino.cc does most of the development and is running ahead of the forked version. At Arduino.org they choose a higher version number to piss on Arduino.cc.
So I don't buy a "Zero Pro" and keep using the newest Arduino IDE from the nice guys at Arduino.cc 
Arduino.cc is running this forum. That is because they want the community to get together and help each other, and that is an important part of Arduino.