Viewing the raw bytes of a file is useful for many purposes. There’s several hex editors easily available:

  • xxd:
    • Typically installed with any Linux distro or copycats (Git Bash on Windows, for example)
    • More of a hex “viewer” than “editor”… it’s not an interactive editor, but you can read & write data with it manually
  • dhex:
    • Ncurses-based hex editor.
  • hexcurse:
    • Another ncurses-based hex editor.
  • Veles:
    • Viewer only
    • Provides 2D and 3D 2- and 3-gram data plots which form patterns unique to many types of data