These days there is an interim release for a group of interested people who bumped into bugs and want to try a newer version to assess the progress. I notice quite some eager among the people who bump into bugs and are willing to try updated versions.
Opera browser has a system in which they publish on a weekly basis internal builds for interested users to try. These are publicly available but are not published like beta versions; the latter go released officially. These socalled weeklies are snapshots and for own risk to try.
Needless to say I am always using the socalled weeklies. The Desktop team announces the new weeklies on their blog: http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/ .
May be Comodo can introduce a similar system; I sense enough eagerness with the Comodo users.
@Moderators. Feel free to move to a more appropriate subforum when needed.
). Opera, which I use, causes me to crash and curse sometimes (still has very annoying errors), but does no real damage. I can work around problems, revert to the previous version (usually), or go use Firefox until things are fixed. A firewall (or virus program, or zombie stomper or …) can cause lasting damage to your system due to the evolving threat environment and the often intimate connection with the underlying system if released to general users prior to at least some serious vetting. Even after all the current beta testing, we get reports of unrecoverable system destructions. Certainly the idea of a selected pre-beta test team for builds can make sense, but there need to be some ground rules-like image your system, watch that you don’t become part of the marching Zombie army, … The other issue is the effort required to manage such an effort effectively. We are all struggling with the current Comodo final release cycle, and seem to be converging on solutions over a few weeks for a very complex program-but only after 6 months of beta testing. I think a general release on a weekly basis would tend to overwhelm both sides. “At your own risk” for Opera and Comodo doesn’t recognize the difference in risk.