Free Hex Editor 3.12

Free Hex Editor is a computer program, which allows you to manipulate binary files. You can view and edit the raw content of any file. The program has a multiple document user interface, enabling you to edit multiple files at the same time.

Like any other Hex editor, this software shows you the data of any computer file as hexadecimal. Maybe you've wondered what the numbers mean. Well, I'll try to explain a bit how the program displays data as bytes. The left side displays the offset of the data. For example, "000001a0:" means that the line starts at 416 bytes (1a0 hexadecimal = 416 decimal) from the beginning of the file. In the middle, each number is in fact a byte from the file, and on the right side, you see the character (ASCII) representation of each byte.

The program supports two editing modes. You have the option to overwrite or insert data. Another nice feature is the fact that you can bookmark any address displayed by the program. You can also navigate to any bookmark. This is a good thing, because you won't get lost in the data.

I was a bit disappointed to see I couldn't replace data in the file using this free version of the software. However, there are advanced features that work, like find, jump to offset, and fill section with custom data.

Pluses: You can set the program to display data as BYTE (default), WORD, or DWORD. It's also possible to adjust the number of elements displayed on each line.

Drawbacks / flaws: A major drawback of this software is that it saves all the files when you exit the program. Although I answered "No" to the save dialog, all the files I had opened were overwritten by this program.

In conclusion: Because saving files doesn't work properly and I'm hoping that it will be fixed, I will wait for the next version of this software.

version reviewed: 3.12