John McAfee, the creator of a programme that is among the most-used virus protection programmes worldwide, was a controversial figure, cryptocurrency promoter, tax opponent and fugitive who twice made long-shot runs for the US presidency. He publicly embraced drugs, guns and sex, and had a history of legal woes spanning from Tennessee to Central America to the Caribbean. Born in the UK in 1945 as John David McAfee, he moved to the US as a child and grew up in Virginia with a father who “beat him mercilessly” and killed himself when the boy was 15, according to Steve Morgan, who spent time with McAfee in Alabama in 2016 to talk about his life for a biography he’d been contracted to write. Morgan said talking about his father’s death was the only time during their long meeting that McAfee cried. [https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/24/john-mcafee-the-tech-pioneer-turned-fugitive](https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/24/john-mcafee-the-tech-pioneer-turned-fugitive)