Mediator John McAfee, who committed suicide in a Spanish prison, was perhaps later more famous for his controversy. But his contribution in the world of antivirus is huge.
McAfee, who founded the antivirus company of this name, worked at many prestigious companies such as NASA and Xerox, before starting his company in 1987. At that time, the first computer viruses began to appear.
"From a security point of view, he created the first antivirus that can scan for many viruses at once," said New York University professor Justin Cappos.
Before McAfee antivirus software was created, computer viruses were caught one by one. One should install program A to control virus A, and create program B to catch virus B. Well, McAfee succeeded in innovating where many viruses can be handled at once.
Because of that innovation, John McAfee became big and beat rivals like Norton. McAfee is many people's go-to for computer virus protection.
"When their product came out, it was important to have an antivirus because there was no such product on Windows," Cappos said. Currently, Windows already has its own defense with the name Windows Defender that is already in the application.
"The Internet just appeared, computers just started to connect to each other, so viruses started to spread a lot," said Cappos.
McAfee retired from his company in 1994. However, McAfee continued to be trusted until it was acquired by Intel for USD 7.68 billion in 2010.
Since his retirement, John McAfee has done many adventures and also caused controversy. He ran into some trouble with the law, eventually committing suicide in a Spanish prison after a court agreed to extradite him to the United States on tax evasion charges. But beyond that, McAfee's services in the antivirus world are still rising.
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