Reviewing the Hiew Hex Editor

Tavis Ormandy reviews the Hiew console hex editor:

The problem is Hiew has a steep learning curve, so if you literally use a hex editor once a year, then it’s probably just not worth it. However, if you live in a hex editor, then it might be more interesting than you realized!

This article assumes you’re already familiar with another hex editor, and are curious if it’s worth your time learning Hiew.

Let me walk you through a few common hex editing tasks and show you how they look… maybe 0.01% of the people reading this will be intrigued.

It has basic mouse support, but you primarily operate it with the keyboard. If you think vim looks arcane, you’re not going to enjoy using Hiew – that’s okay!

Hiew has been around a long time, first released in 1991. It’s still actively maintained – version 8.80 was just released in November – but it comes from an era where powerful software was usually designed around the idea of keyboard macros.

Check out the review with examples in the post here.


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