Couple of months ago, avast took a majority stake in AVG.
They have been very busy to enhance detections in both avast and AVG.
As there is no use in releasing halve baked version, avast postponed the release of new stable products.
There has been intensive beta testing the last +/- month which lead to this new version.
Don't worry about the version numbering, avast keeps changing the way the version number is build op.
First they removed the year from the numbering and now they are adding it again (hence the 17).
And to add to the confusion, that latest stable release has the same number as the latest Beta.
You would expect the numbering is logical and easy to understand, but no...
avast seems to have a habit of doing illogical things. (And I am sure of it, I asked Mr. Spock about it
)