But alas, RedGate has decided to remove the free version & force existing users to buy their tool (even if you're only using an outdated, plugin-free version to browse assemblies ;)) ...
Now I'm not going to turn this post into a rant on the hypocrisy of suddenly charging people for a tool that has been freeware for years. I'm sure they had their reasons for this and their current price of $35 isn't that wallet-shattering either. Considering the amount of options it gives you, it's still reasonably priced.
Still I'm a cheapskate and I didn't use all of Reflector's advanced options, so I went looking for a free replacement that allowed me to browse the code of existing .NET assemblies.
And behold, it looks like there's a promising alternative: ILSpy!
Overview of its features:
- Assembly browsing
- IL Disassembly
- Decompilation to C#
- Saving of resources
- Search for types/methods/properties (substring)
- Hyperlink-based type/method/property navigation
- Base/Derived types navigation
- Navigation history
- BAML to XAML decompiler
- Save Assembly as C# Project
UPDATE
As mentioned by prantlf in the comments, there are even more alternatives:
- dotPeek by JetBrains
- JustDecompile by Telerik
All of these products are still in beta, so I don't think it's fair that I do a review on them. I've tested them all out and lets say they each have their pros and cons ...
But as they're all free products (for now), I can only suggest that you try them out yourselves and see which one you like best ;)
