4 ms·

I wonder how Hex-Rays IDA sales are doing since Ghidra was released. Edit: If anyone can read French accounts: https://consult.cbso.nbb.be/consult-enterprise/08

I wonder how Hex-Rays IDA sales are doing since Ghidra was released. Edit: If anyone can read French accounts: https://consult.cbso.nbb.be/consult-enterprise/0873473914 https://consult.cbso.nbb.be/consult-enterprise/0873473914

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
fr4nkr 2y ago
Most Ghidra discussion I see online boils down to whining that it's not IDA Pro, so, probably not bad.
cess11 2y ago
I think the effect on pirated debuggers might have been bigger. When I was young and dabbled in this space one fun part of the experience was finding a cracked version of Olly that didn't have custom trojans in it. I'm sure this tradition continued after I sort of dropped out, at least until Ghidra and WinDbg and low-threshold gdb-facades made it less relevant.
- self_awareness 2y ago
  Cracked versions of OllyDbg? Wasn't OllyDbg always free?
  - cess11 2y ago
    Nah, it was shareware at first.
    - self_awareness 2y ago
      V1 is still shareware, but wasn't it always free to use? I mean, not that it matters in the long run, now I guess Olly was superseded by x64dbg anyway, but as a person who migrated from SoftICE to Olly, I've never had to find a cracked version for it. But the again, I was one of those "last men standing" when it came to migration, so I could migrate relatively late compared to others.
p_l 2y ago
Biggest impact was reduction of the typical "find untrojaned chinese bootleg copy of IDA" step. Not that it disappeared completely, but there's less of a need :)
- alfiedotwtf 2y ago
  Cracking IDA is a right of passage
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
xvilka 2y ago
What's annoying in IDA Pro price system is that for every OS you need a separate license. Every other tool - Binary Ninja, JEB, etc - has just a license for particular edition and add-ons but it is valid for every operating system.
- rfoo 2y ago
  Piracy-wise it's a good strategy though. Most of leaked copies in recent years were specifically bought to be pirated (except Keen Lab one, rip), and as Windows binaries are the actually portable executables now because of ABI stability and Wine, they almost always buy the Windows version. I've never seen a single leaked Linux IDA Pro and it's immensely useful to have IDA on a real OS without headaches caused by Wine.
self_awareness 2y ago
I don't think anything changed commercially. In security companies, know hows, scripts, support, feature set, is all IDA, not Ghidra. Especially the feature set is not yet the same (IDA has more bells and whistles). Personally, I've switched to Ghidra for most of the things, IDA only when Ghidra doesn't handle something. But then again, personally I never was an IDA customer, beacuse it's too expensive for hobbyist use (and IDA Free is too limited).
ipython 2y ago
From my experience, the muscle memory is strong with ida. Once you’re used to it, it’s hard to switch. So I don’t expect that there was a dramatic plunge as soon as ghidra was released. I have no inside knowledge but I expect the sales drop slowly as new users start with ghidra instead of ida.
- m000 2y ago
  I guess IDA is the Photoshop of software RE.
- spacebacon 2y ago
  Spatial memory … the good reason no one likes interface changes.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

fr4nkr 2y ago

Most Ghidra discussion I see online boils down to whining that it's not IDA Pro, so, probably not bad.

cess11 2y ago

I think the effect on pirated debuggers might have been bigger. When I was young and dabbled in this space one fun part of the experience was finding a cracked version of Olly that didn't have custom trojans in it. I'm sure this tradition continued after I sort of dropped out, at least until Ghidra and WinDbg and low-threshold gdb-facades made it less relevant.

self_awareness 2y ago
Cracked versions of OllyDbg? Wasn't OllyDbg always free?
- cess11 2y ago
  Nah, it was shareware at first.
  - self_awareness 2y ago
    V1 is still shareware, but wasn't it always free to use? I mean, not that it matters in the long run, now I guess Olly was superseded by x64dbg anyway, but as a person who migrated from SoftICE to Olly, I've never had to find a cracked version for it. But the again, I was one of those "last men standing" when it came to migration, so I could migrate relatively late compared to others.

p_l 2y ago

Biggest impact was reduction of the typical "find untrojaned chinese bootleg copy of IDA" step. Not that it disappeared completely, but there's less of a need :)

alfiedotwtf 2y ago
Cracking IDA is a right of passage
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

xvilka 2y ago

What's annoying in IDA Pro price system is that for every OS you need a separate license. Every other tool - Binary Ninja, JEB, etc - has just a license for particular edition and add-ons but it is valid for every operating system.

rfoo 2y ago
Piracy-wise it's a good strategy though. Most of leaked copies in recent years were specifically bought to be pirated (except Keen Lab one, rip), and as Windows binaries are the actually portable executables now because of ABI stability and Wine, they almost always buy the Windows version. I've never seen a single leaked Linux IDA Pro and it's immensely useful to have IDA on a real OS without headaches caused by Wine.

self_awareness 2y ago

I don't think anything changed commercially. In security companies, know hows, scripts, support, feature set, is all IDA, not Ghidra. Especially the feature set is not yet the same (IDA has more bells and whistles). Personally, I've switched to Ghidra for most of the things, IDA only when Ghidra doesn't handle something. But then again, personally I never was an IDA customer, beacuse it's too expensive for hobbyist use (and IDA Free is too limited).

ipython 2y ago

From my experience, the muscle memory is strong with ida. Once you’re used to it, it’s hard to switch. So I don’t expect that there was a dramatic plunge as soon as ghidra was released. I have no inside knowledge but I expect the sales drop slowly as new users start with ghidra instead of ida.

m000 2y ago
I guess IDA is the Photoshop of software RE.
spacebacon 2y ago
Spatial memory … the good reason no one likes interface changes.