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.
Mozillazine.org
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.
Mozillazine.org