Khaled Mardam-Bey - MIRC

MIRC

Mardam-Bey began developing the software in late 1994, and released its first version on February 28, 1995.

Mardam-Bey decided to create mIRC because he found the first IRC client for Windows, WinIRC, lacked some basic IRC features. Then he continued developing it due to the challenge and the fact that people appreciated his work.

mIRC became very popular, having been downloaded almost 21 million times from CNET's download.com service as of January 2011. Nielsen Net Rankings also ranked mIRC among the top 10 most popular Internet applications in 2003.

Through the years Mardam-Bey has developed the software by himself, occasionally posting the beta versions of mIRC in order to have users test them for bugs.

Mardam-Bey initially developed mIRC as a hobby and used to disribute it as a Freeware. Later, as mIRC became very popular and after Mardam-Bey realized he needed to devote more time to develop it, he decided to change the software license in order to make a living from developing it. Consequently, since 2004, Mardam-Bey distributed the software with an uncrippled evaluation license which after a 30-day evaluation period employs a nag screen that pops up on startup which urge the users to register so as to support the further development of mIRC. Failure to register would make the software exit itself, preventing usage. This nag screen can be removed by registering the program for $20. As a result, since then Mardam-Bey's main work is developing mIRC.

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