Not getting notification when new versions available

Something that’s bugged me for a while now… Whenever I hear a new version of avast (free version) is released I normally end up going to the Maintenance tab and running update from there. Sure enough this is telling me I’m currently running version 8.0.1488, and 8.0.1489 is available. The trouble is when I’ve not heard about a new version I’m not being prompted to check. The program home page in fact currently says everything is up-to-date.

My update settings are left at defaults, Engine and Virus Definitions are set to “automatic”, while the program is “Ask when an update is available”. So should I not be getting a pop-up warning that the new version is available? Does it have to be out for a certain length of time, or a major release or something?

The program updates are on a cycle, spread over a couple of weeks so as to balance server load, with over 180 million users they all can’t update the program at the same time even with hundreds of update servers.

avast 8.0.1489 was only released three days ago so it is very likely that you wouldn’t have been notified yet.