Just over one month after the final version of Firefox 4 was released, first beta of Firefox 5 has become available. This newest version of the iconic Web browser is the first one to go through Mozilla's new release schedule.

Previously, Mozilla staggered Firefox releases in three different channels: nightly (most frequent, no quality assurance), beta (less frequent, more stable) and final release (least frequent, most stable).

In April, Mozilla introduced a new channel between nightly and beta called aurora, which promised to offer more frequent updates than beta, but guaranteed a little less in the way of stability. These builds will be released every six weeks to give a predictable level of quality assurance and bug fixing...and assuring a regular release schedule for the beta version.

"With the new process, what happens where and when is a lot more explicit and consistent," Firefox Release Manager Christian Legnitto said in April. "No longer will third parties need to know that beta 8 was API complete while beta 9 was string frozen. Instead we can make assurances such as 'no new en-US strings will be added through updates on the Aurora channel' and 'no extension API changes will be delivered to users via the Beta channel.' This allows third parties to accurately plan and encourages sticking to the rules and schedule."

Download Mozilla FIrefox 5 Beta 1 for Windows in Fileforum right now!

UPDATE: It has been brought to our attention that this is not, in fact, the first beta of Firefox 5. That whole new channel thing has thrown our internal calibration off and triggered false alarms in the Rube Goldberg device that keeps Fileforum up to date.