Comment 6 for bug 466

On rule updates;

I was wrong - the 7 day rule cycle is now 30 days;
    http://www.snort.org/vrt/
    * Subscribers receive real-time rules updates as they are available – get more subscription highlights here
    * Registered users can access rule updates 30 days after release to subscription users.
    * Unregistered users receive a static ruleset at the time of each major Snort Release

And there is also the free Community rule set, that is at least verified to ensure that they don't break Snort;
    http://www.snort.org/pub-bin/downloads.cgi#COMM
    http://www.snort.org/pub-bin/downloads.cgi/Download/comm_rules/Community-Rules-CURRENT.tar.gz

.. these could be updated daily, in addition to the sporadically provided Official Unregistered.