Beta? what is it

[Stephanee]

I'm New here. Can you explain what a " beta " download is , why i should take it or not. I'm on Vista. Thanks for your help.

[rumplestiltskin]

Beta means "probably not completely stable, some bugs present, maybe things don't work exactly as expected, we'll fix things as they get reported to us and, hopefully, once they get ironed out to the point where we can feel proud about the product, we can actually sell the thing and make some money."

Alternatively, there's Microsoft's way of doing things which is to sell you the product and deny that it's really beta-ware as you (and thousands of others) experience software that's not stable, rife with bugs, doesn't work as expected and, eventually, get to the point where it's almost stable (enough so they can avoid a class-action lawsuit), and then announce the next version...sort of like Vista and Windows 7.

[Snakebyte1]

When software is developed it must go through a period of testing to find and fix all the bugs. The company or person doing the development will attempt to test it as best they can but the only way to truly find all the bugs is to release the application and let those users out there try it and report back any problems.

A first series of releases of the application may be referred to as an Alphas (Alpha is, of course the first letter in the Greek alphabet). It may only be released to a select few users for them to kick the tires. Usually lots of problems are found. The next releases would likely be wider Beta releases (Beta is the second letter in the Greek alphabet). It would be expected that the application would have less bugs and be more stable than the Alpha releases. More people get to try it out this Beta, and these users represent a more typical group of the ultimate end users the program is designed for. Problems and issues get reported back to the developers and fixed.

Eventually the number of problems and bugs reported will dwindle and and the developers will feel confident enough to stay that the application is now good enough to be considered a full production release. That of course does not mean bugs can't be found later, and patches put out.

So, the designation of the terms Alpha or Beta simply refers to the state of testing that the application is.

[bendixG15]

The fun part about a "beta" release is that no one knows just how "beta"
it is.
Which is a dumb way of saying that with some companies, their beta release is very close to the finished problem while other companies seem to release the first "draft" and see how low it sinks.

Then again, there are a few beta programs keep the beta label for a long time - years (probably the company lost interest)

So the bottom line is that with beta, you never know what you get --- unless you know the company's history and can trust them.