Talk:Comparison of hex editors

message: Because HexIt's homepage disappeared, I provide link to Wayback snapshot of its homepage here:  Direct Wayback download here:  Wayback download requires repairing ZIP archive, but hopefully its damage doesn't affect archived files - they are identical with themselves downloaded before disappearing of Hexit's homepage. As you see, HexIt is still 1.57 from 2002 onwards. Wikinger 14:16, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hexit homepage disappeared 

message: Almost all modern text editors read the whole file into memory in order to work with it.  This makes even just browsing/viewing large files awkward and slow -- sometimes impossible, if they do not fit into memory.  So, a person wanting to view a large text file needs to use a hex editor, because some of them are able to browse through large files directly, without having to load the whole file into memory first.  Some hex editors are probably better than others at displaying text nicely.  See "Maximum file size" and "Partial file loading" columns in Comparison of hex editors.  Are there any particularly good guides to "Viewing large text files"? -69.87.200.124 12:13, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Large file viewing 

message: The external links to product sites in the first column (unlabeled) should be removed per WP:EL, WP:SPAM, and WP:NOT#LINK --Ronz 21:23, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Removed. --Ronz (talk) 19:23, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Linkfarm

message: PLEASE ADD SORT BOTTON ON EVERY COLUMM  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.164.235.192 (talk) 09:08, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  SORT BUTTON 

message: The source-code of i.Hex is available for downloading on the website however the license is not specified so I think it's license shouldn't be left as proprietary.
Diaa Sami  —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 13:46, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inaccuracy about i.Hex 

message: I removed the listings for HDD's so called free editor as it's actually 14 day trialware that says right in the licensing agreement, "This is not free software.".  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.58.252.5 (talk) 14:45, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  HHD Software Free Hex Editor Neo 

message: Misunderstanding of product EULA by user IP 216.58.252.5.
The Product is available in several different editions, one of which is Free. See the edition comparison table here: Hex Editor Neo Edition Comparison Table: 
Here is the fragment from the product EULA: 
END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
...
Free version of the software is distributed under the terms in "Free Version" section (see below).
...
FREE VERSION
The HHD Software Company through this License Agreement grants to you non-exclusive and non-transferable rights thereunder in respect of using a copy of the computer program for a service life thereof, i.e. for a time period throughout which HHD Software shall maintain and make available an updated version thereof. This particular software version is distributed free of charge, therefore, the applicable license is only granted for home use thereof. In case of this free version, the program is not subject to any guarantees, and the user has no right to any technical support whatsoever.
...
--HHD Software (talk) 13:14, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mistake by 216.58.252.5 

message: First, to be absolutely clear, I am the creator of HexEdit (free and shareware versions).  I have made small changes to this ("Comparison of hex editors") page but these were only small corrections of fact to the entries for Hex Edit.
I am disappointed that some vendors are using this page for self-promotion -- noteably, the commercial vendors HHD and 010.  Also some of the creators of free products (such as HxD) are guilty of the same but I am inclined to give freeware a bit more leeway.
For example, the 4 links in the references section go against the Wikipedia guidelines (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:REF).  They are a link grab and should be removed.
010 have a history of this.  I discovered an article at CodeProject that was self-promotion/link grab disguised as a normal article.  In fact when 010 first came out it plagiarised many ideas that appeared in my  free hex editor.  They continue to advertise their "unique binary templates" which are not unique since I invented a similar facility for HexEdit years before theirs.
I should say that this page is very useful and a great idea (like Wikipedia generally), and I would like to keep it that way.
124.171.23.33 (talk) 21:24, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: As the creator of HxD I would just like to comment on why this is not spam (from my side). The reference link was added because previously someone removed the "unlimited (8 EiB)" from the "Maximum file size" column, with the argument that 8EiB is a limit. Of course on a computer unlimited can only mean virtually unlimited. It seems it's not obvious in general, so this was replaced with "unlimited" and a reference to the product features.
92.202.24.221 (talk) 00:00, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I think I'm the one who added 010 and (quite a few others in the disk editor article) initially...  But I didn't make 010.  I agree that it should not be spammed at the bottom with the references or whatever they're doing.  Are those 'structure' or 'template' features like the disectors in Ethereal/Wireshark?  That is a nice feature for figuring out a file format if true.  Especially if they can be defined from within the editing window!71.196.246.113 (talk) 04:59, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spam 

message: I have never seen a "Used By" column on another Wikipedia listing.  I don't think it's really appropriate here on the grounds that it isn't verifiable by any means.  I'm not sure if this would be considered self-publishing or not.  Additionally, it's not in any way statistically conclusive.  It's basically a third party website saying "this is how many users we have who say they use this software".  The site itself claims to only have 8 Million members, which is not even a decent sampling of world wide users to begin to provide a statistical base.  I leave it to the other better editors to make a determination upon this, or tell me I'm flat out wrong and this is something that needs to be here, and if so, it must need to be added to the many additional software pages to show this information. -- KookyMan (talk) 19:55, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Used By 

message: it has a hex editor.
/not gonna add it myself :/  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.17.167.191 (talk) 12:46, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  GNU Midnight Commander 

message: What hex viewers are available, with no danger of changing the file in any way? Which hex editors can be readily invoked in read-only viewing mode? -96.233.20.116 (talk) 12:54, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hex viewing - read only 

message: In "Character encodings" column, there is "Macintosh" listed for several editors, and in some cases even even "Unix".
Do such character encodings actually exist? I doubt that. --PauliKL (talk) 11:58, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Character encodings Macintosh and Unix 

message: the table should include wheather or not the program can hex edit hard drives.
50.47.102.4 (talk) 11:36, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  hard drive/disk editing? 

message: This program is now called "Binary Viewer" and it is freeware. Source: http://www.proxoft.com/BinaryViewer.aspx  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.174.63.68 (talk) 07:43, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Binary Viewer Pro 

message: This seems to have been implemented. At least the article says "The following is a comparison of notable hex editors". For discussion of notability, see the section "Notability". Jojo (talk) 11:16, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Limit to only notable entries

message: radare2 has some GUIs developed by the community. They are not official, but some of them are actively maintained and for some users improve their radare2 experience. My proposal is to set the GUIs field to something in the lines of "Not official", since a straight Yes would be misleading.
Dd0a (talk) 22:27, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  radare2 has (tons of) GUIs 

message: What was the point of including Notepad++ there? Apparently some plugins support hex viewing/editing, but in this case specific plugin should be mentioned. Now it just looks silly.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.106.171.134 (talk) 08:15, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree and removed. The row did indeed refer to a non-notable 3rd-party plugin (see article history for more information). GermanJoe (talk) 13:11, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notepad++??? 

message: CheatEngine, as linked from this page, is providing a software which is suspect :
The download page on the official website ( http://cheatengine.org/downloads.php ) provides a dynamically generated link to bundlestowerfiles.com/xxxxxxx which downloads the following file :
https://www.virustotal.com/#/file/0cbfd9ca9cb2117129a3b998b25b85647da26edabd126f037bf14534f213c26b/detection
Detection 11/67, community score -29
Suggestion : remove all CheatEngine references
PS: oh nevermind, it has been reported already on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cheat_Engine#Trojan-infused 8 years ago
Wikipedia linking to malware, nobody cares and I just wasted my time...  — Preceding unsigned comment added by User2674 (talk • contribs) 18:59, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suspicious software : CheatEngine 

message: Emacs and UltraEdit are notable as *text editors*. But are they really notable or practical as hex editors?
I don't think they really fit in this list, if you consider this criterion.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.219.148.137 (talk) 10:18, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notability 

message: The question has been raised earlier: what exactly is "text editor" supposed to mean?
Every hex editor also has the capability to edit text, it's a basic feature.
So, is it supposed to mean if the program is a text editor, by default or mainly? If that is the case, I don't see how that is relevant to a *hex* editor, or how this is a positive feature. A text editor is usually not suited as a full blown hex editor, so a "Yes" should be either red or neutral, but not green.
Probably this column should be removed, or replaced with something more meaningful.
For example: "show text files with line wrapping, and still be able to load and browse large files fast."
It is hard to come up with a short term for this, my suggestion:
"Large text file editing"
This would imply that line wrapping has to be supported, to edit text files naturally, but
"Large text file editing (with line wrapping)" seems exceedingly long.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.219.148.137 (talk) 10:35, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Tex editor" column usefulness 

message: A question for clarification, that has already been raised in some way in previous messages: should editors that are primarily described as text editors but have some additional hex editing mode as secondary feature or as external plugin (such as GNU Emacs or Vim) be included in this list or not? It seems a bit misleading to add such applications with only rudimentary hex functionality in the same list with fully-fledged hex editors. Whether such applications are added or not, it would be useful to clarify the inclusion criteria in this regard a bit more. GermanJoe (talk) 16:45, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Text editors with hex editing functionality? 

message: For the same reason that only notable hex editors are included.
Emacs, vim, and UltraEdit have the most minimal support possible.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.219.179.109 (talk) 15:51, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Text editors that don't focus on hex editing, should not be mentioned 

message: I feel a bit conflicted about inclusion of Binary Ninja in the comparison table. It is technically not a hex editor, nor is it advertised as one. A hex editor is expected to work on arbitrary data files regardless of their content. However, if you open an audio file with Binary Ninja, it will attempt to disassemble it as an executable, which will typically not produce a meaningful result, since an audio file is not an executable. That said, Binary Ninja might be exactly what some people are looking for since some hex editors do include tools used for reverse engineering application executables. Cyberixae (talk) 16:17, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Binary Ninja