It is your choice if you want to Upgrade to the new version…That is why if you choose to update to the new version …you can go to maintenance and click update…They leave this up to the users because of compatibillity problems or issues with certain software that each user might have installed…Example…The old version of Avast did not have any issues with Comodo Firewall…If a person is using Comodo firewal they might not want to update to the new Avast and keep the old one so that they can keep Comodo…This is just an example…I still know people who are using the 4.8 version of Avast because of the software they’re using and don’t want the new version…So Avast will not send pop ups to update …you have that choice…
Cheers and Safe surfing!!!