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Comment by hacker_9 | Hacker News Reader

This is so crazy... that it might just work??

If I think of McAfee three things come to mind:

    1. Creator of awful anti-virus software that slows your computer to a halt.
    2. Fled Belize on some murder scandal.
    3. Is crazy paranoid.

So if he is to have any chance he should really be spending all his money in the PR department...

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I think it's worth adding a 1.5. Creator of a hilarious video about how to uninstall his namesake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpRvaQsGIY8

Anyway, given how the field looks likely to shake out, I might just vote for him as a default option.

Personally, I find that video chilling. This is a guy that may have murdered someone in cold blood, and here he is pointing a gun in the camera's face like it's all a big joke.

It's strange how if you have enough charisma people will rally behind you no matter what you've done.

It is a big joke; the video is intended to be humorous. I'm not sure what about it could be interpreted as chilling.

I know there's a difference, because he hasn't been convicted of anything, but imagine OJ Simpson on a video making stabbing motions into the camera.

No wait, don't imagine it, watch it happen in this 1998 episode of the Ruby Wax show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwYctVDQFqQ

He also hacked the people accusing him of murder and exposed them for who and what they are. Google it and evaluate it for what it is, instead of just believing what the press feeds us.

Supposedly McAfee antivirus software turned awful after being taken over by Intel. I don't have a source on that, but I've seen this sentiment in a few places.

As for some murder scandal, I think it makes sense to check out his side of story: https://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/3hr9f0/i_am_john_mc... https://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/3hr9f0/i_am_john_mc...

The entire AMA is quite interesting, though he seems a bit paranoid indeed (on the other hand - if there's some truth in Belize government opressing him, I'm not surprised).

Source about McAfee software quality going down is John McAfee himself. He made & starred in a video to explain uninstalling McAfee.

[NSFW] https://youtube.com/watch?v=YpRvaQsGIY8

I know about this video, but I think opinions of users who used this software back when McAfee actually worked on it (who apparently left company mid-nineties) would be more trustworthy than his own claims. I've tried some googling, but couldn't find anything.

I was hoping this wasn't posted yet XD - I believe his recent revelations are as much of a troll as this video.

Supposedly McAfee antivirus software turned awful after being taken over by Intel

McAfee was only bought by Intel in 2011, it was getting worse and worse for years before that.

True, though wikipedia says McAfee left the company in 1994. So his story of other people messing up his software still seems plausible to me.

Hard to say either way. McAfee AV was heavily tied into the popularity of consumer desktops, so before Windows 95 and beyond, it was a tadpole compared to what it grew into.

Note that when he created scan, it was a very different software from the one which became later.

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