Even to my eyes, Japanese tend to be suspicious of "free" products. However, judging from their valuing Kaspersky and the tools of Biglobe, they must be far from being blind. I hope Alwil will make them realize that there are "free" and competent products. Unfortunately or fortunately, I think the same thing to some of their rival companies, though.
Actually the Japanesse tend to think that a free/ not so expensive product is one that is not of good quality. So as far as the free version of Avast is concerned I don't think that there are things that can be done, however I think that there are things that can be done in order to boost the paid product's sales such as an ad campaign on yahoo...
Al968
There are two proverbs in Japan.
"There is no such thing as a free lunch" or "Free is the most expensive". (ただより高いものは無い)
"A cheap purchase is money lost" (安物買いの銭失い)
It's a way of thinking in Japan... especially important / essential things (including security software).
However, there is also wishful tendency.
Now the share of K7 Anti-virus (appearing in Kuchikomi Ranking as "Virus Security Zero", which pushes "Paid once, no additional yearly charge") is growing significantly.
Considering this, it seems there is much room for growing free (or low price) product... problems are prejudice against free product (is less powerful than paid one) and its publicity (IMHO, quite a few Japanese internet users don't know even there is free anti-virus product).
