[AceJohnny2]

As others have said, you'd need to do 'git fetch' first before 'git status' would report a difference.

The reason git doesn't do this automatically is because, in its simple model, it doesn't waste time trying to connect to the remote 'origin' or any other remotes you may have configured every time you do 'git status', which is most often used to check what you've modified locally.

I can understand why this would be jarring coming from SVN, where you always want to be checking against the remote/server. Since git has a copy of all history locally, remotes are de-emphasized compared to centralized VCSs.