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I disagree with this for a non-direct sales reason: before, you learned IDA, cracked or not. If you learned to reverse software of any kind, you acquired IDA.

by bri3d 4y ago

I disagree with this for a non-direct sales reason: before, you learned IDA, cracked or not. If you learned to reverse software of any kind, you acquired IDA. Now, more and more tutorials and introductions use Ghidra. Is it better than IDA? In some cases yes, in most not yet, but it’s easier to get. If I were Hex-Rays, I’d be very concerned with a generational shift as people stop bothering to pirate IDA and those who learned on Ghidra enter the industry and don’t demand an IDA license.

hunter-gatherer 4y ago
This just came up in my current org a couple months ago and we cancelled our IDA licenses to start using Ghidra. Ghidra is ver capable in my opinion. When I was in the US Gov there were plenty of IDA licenses floating around despitr the existence of Ghidra. The Gov thinking was basically "better to have it and not need it instead of need it and not have it". There must be a thousand licenses that never get used year after year. I suspect IDA is safe for a while for this reason alone, but of course could be wrong and don't have the numbers-just speculation.
bpye 4y ago
It's also really quite easy to add at least basic support to Ghidra for extra targets. I for example got quite far writing a TMS7000 [0] target for Ghidra [1] to reverse engineer the firmware for a TI teletype... though I still haven't dumped the ROMs to actually get further with it. [0] - http://www.bitsavers.org/components/ti/TMS7000/TMS7000_Family_Microarchitecture_-_Nov_1982.pdf http://www.bitsavers.org/components/ti/TMS7000/TMS7000_Famil... [1] - https://github.com/benpye/tms7000 https://github.com/benpye/tms7000
luch 4y ago
Exactly, I am at a job where we have decades of cumulative experience using IDA and even we are wondering if we should not cut ourselves free of Hex-Rays's lock in and begrudgingly learn Ghidra. For a "new" professional/team, it makes zero sense to buy a IDA license nowadays.

by bri3d 4y ago

hunter-gatherer 4y ago

This just came up in my current org a couple months ago and we cancelled our IDA licenses to start using Ghidra. Ghidra is ver capable in my opinion. When I was in the US Gov there were plenty of IDA licenses floating around despitr the existence of Ghidra. The Gov thinking was basically "better to have it and not need it instead of need it and not have it". There must be a thousand licenses that never get used year after year. I suspect IDA is safe for a while for this reason alone, but of course could be wrong and don't have the numbers-just speculation.

bpye 4y ago

It's also really quite easy to add at least basic support to Ghidra for extra targets. I for example got quite far writing a TMS7000 [0] target for Ghidra [1] to reverse engineer the firmware for a TI teletype... though I still haven't dumped the ROMs to actually get further with it. [0] - http://www.bitsavers.org/components/ti/TMS7000/TMS7000_Family_Microarchitecture_-_Nov_1982.pdf http://www.bitsavers.org/components/ti/TMS7000/TMS7000_Famil... [1] - https://github.com/benpye/tms7000 https://github.com/benpye/tms7000

luch 4y ago

Exactly, I am at a job where we have decades of cumulative experience using IDA and even we are wondering if we should not cut ourselves free of Hex-Rays's lock in and begrudgingly learn Ghidra. For a "new" professional/team, it makes zero sense to buy a IDA license nowadays.