BetaArchive

BetaArchive home page as of May 2023

BetaArchive is an online software preservation community, mostly known for its large software archive. It was founded on 17 August 2006 by Andrew "Andy" Whyman following the demise of OSBetaArchive.com and has since then grown to be one of the largest pre-release software and abandonware repositories. The site consists of a forum board, an FTP server and a wiki. BetaArchive hosts over 40,000 releases in its over 100 TB archive. FTP access can be gained by registering on the forum and then contributing a release.

In December 2008, the site received a large update dubbed "BetaArchive v2" with the switch from phpBB 2 to phpBB 3. In March 2013, the development of BetaArchive v3 was announced,^[1] however, it had been postponed indefintely and version 2.1 was unveiled instead in September 2013, mostly consisting of forum restructuring. In September 2018, the Release Database, an online listing of all releases archived by the community, was publicly launched.^[2]

The latest revision to the site, BetaArchive v3, rolled out on 7 June 2020 and included an upgrade to phpBB 3.3 together with a refreshed, responsive theme for the forum.^[3] It was slightly updated in 2022 to move both the logo and toplinks to the top center of the header.

In 2023, the "FTP Access" status for accounts was retired, with the only access to downloads being the BetaArchive Database.