Firefox 2 Beta 1 Not Yet Released : Get Release Candidate Builds

Lots of websites and top blogs have been reporting the release of Firefox 2.0 beta 1 downloads. However, these are not the final Firefox 2 beta 1 for public release, but release build candidates for testing by the development community.

Mozillazine clarifies these errors

“Over the past few days, several release candidate builds of Mozilla Firefox 2.0 Beta 1 have been posted to the bonecho-beta1-candidates directory on ftp.mozilla.org. However, contrary to the indications given by some news outlets, Firefox 2.0 Beta 1 has not yet been released.

In common with many software projects, several release candidate (test) builds of Firefox are made available in the run-up to major milestone releases. These builds are similar, but not identical to, the final milestone releases and are designed to allow the testing community to discover any last-minute problems. Sometimes, but not always, the last release candidate builds are identical to the actual milestone release versions.”

They further point out that Firefox 2.0 Beta 1 is scheduled for release tomorrow and “it is possible that a last-minute problem could necessitate a further release candidate, with the final Beta 1 builds being delayed until later this week.”