![]() Basically, you point it at a file or folder and go! The parameters are controlled by command-line switches, but most folk won't have to worry about that it all happens invisibly, and is built-in to your Windows ® Explorer context (aka "concept", aka "right-click") commands (see above). ![]() There's only one reason, though peace of mind.Ībsolutely no-nonsense file verification.Ĭhecksum can create (two clicks, or a drag-and-drop) or verify (one click) hashes of a file, a folder, even a whole disk full of files and folders in one simple, no-nonsense, high-performance operation. I'll leave you to consider the million other uses. It was a hash failure that recently alerted me to a failing batch of DVD-R disks I saved my fading data in time, and got a refund on the disks. If you distribute data in any way, maybe torrenteering your favourite things, run a file server of some kind, or just email a few files to your friends hashes enable the person at the other end to be absolutely sure that the file arrived perfectly, 100% intact.Īs well as providing secure verification against tampering, virus infection, file (and backup file) corruption, transfer errors and more, digital fingerprints can serve as an "early warning" of possible media failures, be they optical or magnetic. If you burn a lot of data to CD or DVD, you can use checksum to accurately verify the integrity of your data right after a burn, and at any time in the future. For quick file compare tasks, there's also checksum's little brother simple checksum, simply drag & drop Two files for an instant hash-accurate comparison. It's also useful if you want to compare files and folders/directories using checksums is far more accurate than simply comparing file sizes, dates or any other property. ![]() ![]() even the slightest change in the data produces a wildly different hash.Ī file hash is also the best way to ensure your 3D Printed propeller blade hasn't been "redesigned" to self-destruct! This hash, when used, ensures that the file you downloaded is exactly the same file the author uploaded, and hasn't been tampered with in any way, Trojan added, etc. ![]() This is useful, even crucial, in all kinds of situations where data integrity is important.įor instance, these days, it's not uncommon to find MD5 hashes (and less rarely now, SHA1 hashes) published alongside downloads, even Windows downloads. Peace of mind! BLAKE2, SHA1 and MD5 hashes are used to verify that a file or group of files has not changed. No more! Now I have checksum, and it suffers from none of these problems as well as adding quite a few tricks of its own. I always knew that data verification should be simple, even easy, but it invariably ended up a chore.Įither the brain-dead programs don't know how to recurse, or don't even pretend to, or they give the MD5 hash files daft, generic names, or they can't handle long file names, or foreign file names, or multiple files, or they run in MS DOS, or choke on UTF-8, or are painfully slow, or insist on presenting me with a complex interface, or don't have any decent hashing algorithms, or don't know how to synchronize new files with old, or have no shell integration or any combination of these things and I would usually end up shouting "FFS! JUST DO IT!!!". In the decade before checksum, I must have installed and uninstalled dozens, perhaps hundreds of Windows MD5 hashing utilities, and overwhelmingly they leave me muttering "brain-dead POS!" under my breath, or words to that effect, or not under my breath. ![]()
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