After downloading a big file from the internet, if you want to find out that it has not become corrupt or have been modified in any way then you can calculate its file hash and compare it with the file hash given on the download website. File hashes are calculated based on the contents of a file and are unique for each file. There are many different algorithms used for calculating hashes such as MD5, SHA1, SHA256, CRC-32, RIPEMD-160 etc. Even though the file hash is just a number and can be written in the common decimal format, it is usually expressed in the hexadecimal format.
There are many tools that can be used to calculate file hashes and compare them with the known file hash – our own tool HashIt, Hashing, HashTab and more. If you want to batch hash files then there is another free file hashing tool called abylon FREEHASH. This free tool can calculate three different types of file hashes MD5, SHA1, and SHA256.
In the FREEHASH interface, you have to add all of your files, hashes for which you want to calculate. Once the files have been added, it will automatically calculate the file hashes and will display them in the interface. As you select the file from the list, it will display the hashes for that particular file in the summary box and allows you to compare the file hashes for that file.
You can copy/paste the file hash given on a website’s download page in FREEHASH interface and it will show you a green checkmark if the file hashes match which means that your downloaded file is bit-by-bit identical to the one hosted on the download server. A red cross mark is shown if the hashes don’t match in which case the file has been modified and is different from the original one.
You can download abylon FREEHASH from https://www.abylonsoft.com/freehash/index.htm.