It seems increasingly fashionable, if somewhat worrying, to push beta releases to the unsuspecting general public. I’m as keen to see the release of Internet Explorer 8 as the next developer, not least because it will be the first Microsoft browser to run in standards compliant mode by default; but it does concern me when I visit the IE homepage and am greeted by a big advert inviting me to download IE8 beta with the tag line “Introducing Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 - faster, easier, and safer than ever.” Is the average web user aware that beta means it is potentially unstable or insecure pre-release software put out there purely for testing purposes? I doubt it.