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Best Free Hex Editor
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In a Hurry?
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 Go straight to the Quick Selection Guide |
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Introduction
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| If you ever accidentally open an exe program file in a text editor such as Notepad you will be confronted with a mass of unintelligible garbage on your screen. Worse still if you write the exe file back to disk, the program file would almost certainly be corrupted and would not work. That's because text editors are designed only to work with text files which are files with extensions such as .txt, .bat, .prg and .html. To view and safely change binary files such as .exe, .com and .dll files you need a hex editor, sometimes called a binary editor. Most average PC users have no need for such a program but techies and gamers find them indispensable. |
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Discussion
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There are some excellent free hex editors available that range from the small and simple editors to advanced products that are comparable to any commercial product. Hex editors are a software category where personal needs and preferences are so important that it is meaningless to pick a "best product". That of course doesn't stop me stating my own preferences. For my needs, HxD is a clear winner. Its first virtue is that it doesn't need installing. Second, it has a great interface. Third, it handles huge files without slowing down. Then add in unlimited undo, great searching and search/replace capabilities, binary file comparison, full support for ANSI, DOS/IBM-ASCII and EBCDIC character plus a dozen other features and you can see why I like it. But it doesn't stop there. Hxd also works as a RAW disk editor and a full read/write RAM editor. This power also makes it a dangerous tool in the hands of beginners. It may also give your security software an apoplexy, but users skilled enough to use this product will understand that this is not a concern. Hexplorer has some unique features which make it a powerful editor for images. If you want to open images in a hex editor you should try this out. However, I was unable to increase the font size which made reading difficult. |
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Related Products and Links
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| There are a few more hex editors like frhed, hex editor neo, etc. which I will review shortly. Stay tuned in for updates. |
The free version is simply an old version of the paid version. There are no restrictions on available features.
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Editor
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This software category is in need of an editor. If you are interested in taking it over then check out this page for more details. You can then contact us from that page or by clicking here. |
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Comments
The Hex Editor at the top of my list is XVI32 by Christian Maas. Handles large files, has comprehensive search and replace options, even has a built-in scripting language that is easy to use.
@commenter above: XVI32 doesn't handle large files well, since it loads them entirely into memory. This makes it *slow*.
I have go to agree that XVI32 is better than all those listed here.
Surely the best Hex Editor in the world is HHD Software Hex Editor Commercial version , but the free version is powerfull too, which I think if it is not the best free hex editor, at least is one of the bests :
Free Hex Editor Neo
http://www.hhdsoftware.com/Products/home/hex-editor-free.html
and then :
Tiny Hexer
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Others/Miscellaneous/tiny-hexer.shtml
HexEdit
http://www.hexedit.com/ ( download the free version and templates )
XVI32 whick is commented before :
http://www.chmaas.handshake.de/delphi/freeware/xvi32/xvi32.htm
HxD , exists on this page
http://mh-nexus.de/programs.htm
Catch 22 HexEdit
http://catch22.net/software/hexedit.asp
Hexplorer , exists on this page
https://sourceforge.net/projects/hexplorer/
Hadi
To all XVI32 suggesters. This program is terribly outdated (last version from August 2003), and can't handle huge files. The Website states 60 MB to be huge, which apparently really is huge since it takes over 10 seconds to load... other programs need 1 second for 5 GB!
Editing is a pain since it uses a grid instead of a real editor. You can't even select properly.
When you scroll it shows a "scrolling..." message until you stop scrolling, that's incredibly annoying. When scrolling using the keyboard only one pane updates, but the other one lags behind.
No, this really isn't a nice hex editor. It has some good features, but the program isn't well implemented.
If you're running on Linux or another Unix, consider
bvi. bvi (Binary Visual Editor) is a simple, but usable
hex file editor for those of us comfortable with vi and vim.
http://bvi.sourceforge.net/
thanks for this job.
I actually try HexEdit (Mitec Hexa Editor).
Seems to be ok about spyware but :
- the exe is packed with upx (so need to be unpack before launched to be sure it's really ok).
- it's not portable because it writes in the registry (HKCU\Soft\MiTeC)
=> so no install but need to be uninstalled.
On the usage :
- all I need !
- no drag 'n drop but the mouse wheel is supported !
Hope it helps
XVI has some serious shortcomings:
- no undo!!
- difficult to copy from (can't drag a selection, no ctrl+c)
- can't paste hex into the Insert dialog, have to type it
- can't paste hex into the Search dialog, have to type it
- when you maximize it, it doesn't go right to the right edge of the screen, so when you try to quickly close it using the X, you often accidentally close the maximized window that is BEHIND it.
I've been using it for a long time, but no more! It's time to move on!
The only good thing XVI has that others don't (that I use, anyway) is save-able bookmarks. The scripting sounds neat, but I've never used it.
Thank you very much.
In Hexplorer, rather than changing the font size, you must change the font. Under [View][Options] select "Fixed Roman Large".
A powerful-yet-small hex editor that I've been enjoying lately is HexEdit from http://www.catch22.net.
I have had it for years. Never was able to check it out
Looking at this hexplorer was a sure turn away. I don't know why the default font is microscopic.
Thanks to you friend. For the first time now, I am able to see the face of hexplorer, using large Roman Font.
Or if yo like bvi try the much more featureful bviplus
http://bviplus.sourceforge.net
On major advantage bviplus has over bvi is opening large file quickly (even working with files over the 2gb (32bit) limit). Also it just does a lot more without feeling much more complex.
Seeing forward to see Hex Editor Neo Free reviewed.
Hxd is a great tool. I use it for a long time.
crash immediately the first running,when opening a 6G file in my document fold.
Thank you for your article.You saved me you wrote this.
I'm looking for hex binary editor for Windows.
Thank you.
The best free hex editor has been for the last 10 years the free version of hexedit - see http://www.hexedit.com. Just a few of the features:
- only editor I tried that could add a byte to the end of a 1 Terabyte file in a few seconds (at best the others hung or refused to do this)
- best search and replace options (eg mask and alignment options that are amazing)
- fast searches
- background searches are really useful
- unlimited undo (of course)
- most powerful template system
- very nice user interface - highlighter, + much more that I don't recall off my head
- comprehensive help
Please tell me a feature in any other free editor that is not better done in HexEdit.
I was interested in a comparison between the free, and the commercial version of the product to see what is missing in the free version of the software. Some free versions of the software are really crippled. I was not able to find a comparison on the site. Would you be able to tell what are the differences?
you can try http://wxhexeditor.sf.net too.
Free, Linux, Windows, MacOSX and can open files up to 128 TeraBytes
The software is in alpha stage, and therefore not recommended.
I am the developer of it and I leave it in alpha state because of no cut/delete feature yet. AFAIK, It have no problems on stability...
THanks
Thanks for posting. But fact remains that software in alpha stage are not recommended for general use, and we certainly would not recommend a software in alpha stage. An alpha stage software should only be used by its testers, and you should not release it for general users.
I agree with this assertion but maybe we should invite the developer to state when the product will enter a beta phase and what the changelog is likely to reflect at this point.
As far as I know the free version is just a previous version of the shareware. I tried both and don't think there is great difference. You should be able to tell from change list.
I really like Tiny Hex Editor. It was recently posted on Free Download A Day. It doesn't have advanced features and it loads files into memory, but it's a single 240KB file and it works great as a simple hex editor. Plus it looks cool. =P
http://brooksyounce.tripod.com/soft/hexedit.htm
The brooksyounce website is very much borderline for being accepted here. Proceed with caution.
Thanks for the warning, but could you please elaborate? I'd like to know what's up with his site so I can make better judgement on the links I post in the future.
Sure. The same applies to this part of the site as stated in the forum rules:
18. No links to websites we determine to be unsuitable are allowed. Websites will normally need to have a green rating or no rating at WOT* in order to be allowable. No links to WOT red-rated sites are allowable. Links to orange-rated sites are not normally allowed except by direct reference to and permission of the Forum Manager:
http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/brooksyounce.tripod.com
Granted that these things can be manipulated by third parties with malicious intentions but we have to set a bencnmark somewhere, and this is it :)
What if you want to see/edit the actual binary
i'm talkin' 1's and 0's
groupable in any size (for bytes AND nybbles)
this would be VERY useful for pictures...
I'm currently trying HxD, and despite only messing with it for 5 minutes, I noticed that it has an undo function, and doesn't save changes automatically. Maybe the review on this list was made on a previous version of HxD that saved automatically? Well, the info should be updated now, because that bad aspect could scare some people, despite now being false.