http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-256-beta/
there have been many Changes - If you're used to the old Blenders, Blender 2.5 may seem quite different at first.
Many tutorials are in Blender 2.5. and it would be easier to follow them having the new interface
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Blender 2.56 beta
February 1, 2011 - 3:58am
#1
Blender 2.56 beta
However, there is a general resistance to releasing portable versions of beta software on this site, except for Firefox.
Audacity is an example - its most stable version (1.3.x) been in beta since 2005 and there's no sign that the Audacity devs are releasing a final version any time soon; we only released a portable version of the 1.3 here in 2010.
I must say, Blender is on a much faster track though. I'm guessing that they'll do a final 2.5 release this year, and we'll pick it up here pretty quickly after that.
I made this half-pony, half-monkey monster to please you.
...that some years ago Portableapps made also an exception for OpenOffice.
Any way Blender is a particular case, because, as I said, bog part of the tutorials is made using the beta version. Somehow the beta of Blender 2.5 is used like an official version. Therefore it would be really helpful to have it
Two days ago blender 2.57 RC1 was released (http://download.blender.org/release/Blender2.57/). Version 2.57 will be the next stable one.