When Red Gate announced that .NET Reflector would no longer be offered as a free product, I wrote that this would be good for the community. Reflector has been a staple product for years, but there was little reason for anyone to offer alternatives as it was a solid product and free.
In a short few months, competitive products have been announced and a few have been released. I wrote about the decompile feature in JustCode, which is an innovative method of decompiling your code directly within Visual Studio. However, a standalone product is desired. We don’t always want to navigate assemblies from within Visual Studio, and an interface specifically designed to navigate and decompile assemblies is valuable when taking a journey through the .NET framework, a new product, or mystery libraries.
Telerik recently announced a new product: JustDecompile. It is guaranteed to be free for everyone, free forever: there are no time bombs. You can download the beta from the product page. I must say, out of the alternatives I’ve looked at, I believe JustDecompile has the smoothest user interface. Here is the main screen when you open the application.

That definitely has a xaml, more modern feel to it. Opening an assembly is as you would expect: click open or drag an assembly onto the assembly panel. However, I like browsing the framework for ideas. There are more options that can be accessed by expanding the arrow.

In this beta, there are three available options for Framework assemblies: .NET 2.0, .NET 4.0, and Silverlight. Clicking one populates the assembly list.

You have likely noticed another option by now: Assembly List. This allows you to create and load your own lists of assemblies. This is useful when working in different contexts.
One thing I find incredibly useful is that the platform profile of the assembly is in parentheses next to the name. I’ve sometimes looked through differences between versions of assemblies and having this quick reference helps keep me on track.
Here’s a screenshot with a class decompiled:

The Go To Type and Go To Symbol are reminiscent of the same functionality within JustCode. I am very impressed by the speed in which it searches.

Telerik JustDecompile is beta and there are many features that will make it better. You can help Telerik decide which features to focus on at User Voice. Currently, the number one suggestion is to allow assembly editing!
Download JustDecompile today. It’s free for everyone, free forever!