Obfuscar

What Obfuscar is

Obfuscar is a free tool for obfuscating .NET assemblies on Linux, macOS, and Windows. It renames metadata—including methods, properties, events, fields, types, and namespaces—to make decompiled code harder to follow. The shorter names can also shrink the resulting executable. Obfuscar can hide string constants by replacing string loads with calls that retrieve values from a buffer, at a small performance cost. This hiding is reversible, so the documentation advises against keeping confidential information as strings in assemblies. Configuration uses an XML file to identify assemblies, dependency paths, and the output location. Obfuscar is available as a NuGet package and a .NET Global Tool, and it can be integrated into command-line workflows. The project cautions that obfuscation does not stop a determined reverse-engineering effort. It also warns that malformed or malicious assemblies may cause unexpected behavior, including crashes or hangs, and recommends processing only trusted inputs. Version 3.0 requires absolute paths in its configuration and rejects relative paths and variable placeholders.