If you are into rooting or flashing ROMS, then you might have heard the term MD5 checksum and SHA Hash. Basically, it is a digital signature-based encryption system to check the integrity of a file. There are several different types of algorithm formats that have checksum like MD5, SHA1, SHA256, SHA384, SHA512, SFV, CRC, Base64, LM, etc. There are some very good and powerful has checker programs available for everyone online, using the tools you can easily check the MD5 checksum or the hash of a file. Using the windows command line you can even verify the MD5 checksum.

Difference Between Hash and Checksums

The bottom line is that the purpose of both hash and Checksums is the same. Both of them are used to ensure the integrity of a file via an alphanumeric string. The person or the organisation who uploads the file needs to provide the hash for the uploaded file. Only then you can verify it easily. All you need to do is, download the file, use a hash checker or MD5 checksum utility to compare the signature of the original file and your copy of the file. If the signatures don’t match then it means that the copy of the file which you have is either corrupted or have been compromised in between.

If some unauthorized person has modified the original file or if it has been corrupted due to a bad download, then the checksum value of the file will be changed immediately. The reasons which a file can get corrupted could be multiple, a few of them would be a network issue or errors that come in between while moving or copying a file, or if you are trying to move to or from a faulty storage drive.

Coming to the MD5 checksum, it is a string of hexadecimal string (10+6 = 16) that contains 6 alphabets (A to F) and 10 digits (0 to 9). In total it is made up of 32 characters long and looks like the string shown below.

8OJNCO9UFLKNC938509W4FKNC84P43FS3Q

HAF98Q3LASKC9O3POUASCLKN9UP32NL3

While MD5 is a 128-bit fingerprint. It is one of the most popular has algorithms and because it is very commonly used everywhere, it is more prone to hash collision problem. A few of the checksums that are most widely used to verify data integrity are MD5, SHA1, and SHA256.

Among the different encryption types, there are several different types of hashing available as well-

• MD4
• MD5
• SHA1
• SHA2
• SHA224
• SHA256
• SHA384
• SHA512
• SHA-512/224
• SHA-512/256
• SFV
• CRC
• Base64
• LM
• Tiger
• xxHash
• MACTripleDES
• RipeMD
• HAVAL
• Whirlpool

Now that we have gained a few knowledge about what is MD5 checksum and how it works. We can move ahead and look into some methods through which we can check the MD5 checksum and the has a value of a file on Windows 10, macOS and Linux. Not only that, but an MD5 hash checker can also save you from malicious files. There are a few different ways through which we can verify the hash value of a file online, hash checker utilities and if not then you can even use the command line of Windows 10.

Online file checkers are also great but only if your file is small, because if you have a large size file then it will take a lot of time and will also consume a lot of internet data every time you will check the hash value online. Therefore, it is a better idea to download a tool that can check and verify the checksum of the files.

Check Hash Value Using Command line

As mentioned above we can use the command prompt on Windows to check the hash value of a file. To know the method of doing so, follow the steps mentioned below.

MD5 Sum Windows Command Line

Windows 10 now natively supports the calculation of the hash values or checksum for a few types of algorithms like MD5, SHA1, SHA256, SHA384, SHA512, MACTripleDES, and RIPEMD160. So you can easily find the hash code of these types of files using the Windows 10 command line.

• First, navigate to the path where the file is located.
• Now press and hold the shift key, while holding right-click from the mouse on an empty space of the location. Now click on the Open Powershell window here
• Next, when the command prompt window is launched, execute the following command to find out the hash value or MD5 checksum of a file.

get-filehash filename

• Do note that you will get the SHA256 hash value of the file by default.
• To get the hash value for some other hash algorithms, you need to type the following command.

get-filehash -Algorithm [hash-type] filename

• If you are looking to find out the MD5 checksum of a file, use the command written below.

get-filehash -Algorithm MD5 Frija-v1.4.2.zip

• That’s all, and now you have successfully checked the MD5 checksum on your Windows 10 PC using a command line.

Windows certutil- hashfile Command

There is another way to check the checksum of the file besides using the command line. You can use the built-in certificate utility tool to verify MD5 and SHA checksum. However, in this method you need to use Windows command prompt instead of power shell. ‘certutil-hash file’ command-line tool has support for the following has algorithms.

• MD2
• MD4
• MD5
• SHA1
• SHA256
• SHA384
• SHA512

CertUtil -hashfile <path to file> MD5

Mac OS X Hash Checker Commands

Now, if you have a PC that is running mac OS like a Macbook or iMac. Then you have to use the terminal commands to check the hash value or MD5 checksum of a file.

• Navigate to Applications > Utilites > terminal.
• Now, launch the terminal and then you have to execute the following commands to get the hash algorithms of the following types- MD5, SHA1, SHA256, and SHA512. Make sure you enter the correct path of the file followed by the filename.

MD5: $ md5 filename.dmg

SHA1: $ shasum -a 1 filename.dmg

SHA256: $ shasum -a 256 filename.dmg

SHA512: $ shasum -a 512 filenamet.dmg

Below is an output you will get with the has of a file.

MD5(WebStorm-2020.1.1.dmg)= d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e 

Linux Command Line to Check Hash

For Linux users, if you people want to check the hash, then here is how you can check or verify the checksum of MD5 (md5sum), SHA1 (sha1sum), SHA256 (sha256sum), SHA224 (sha224sum), or SHA384 (sha384sum) using the command line. All you have to do is, open the terminal window and execute the commands to go to the location where the file is located, for ubuntu users follow the command line written just below this.

ubuntu@ubuntu-desktop:~$ cd Downloads

Next, write the command written below.

md5sum Frija-v1.4.2.zip

The MD5 checksum of the file would print out an alphanumeric string along with the file name.

8044d756b7f00b695ab8dce07dce43e5 Frija-v1.4.2.zip

To check the SHAH256 hash of a file, you will have to use the following command.

sha256sum ubuntu-mate-20.04-desktop-amd64.iso

Gtk Hash Tool ( Ubuntu )

o generate or verify the checksums of various different algorithms using a GUI (Graphical user interface ), use the tool GtkHash. It has good support for different algorithms like MD5, SHA1, SHA256, SHA512, Whirlpool, Tiger, RipeMD, HAVAL, etc. To download Gtkhash from GitHub click here. For installation enter the command Sudo apt install gtkhash

After the installation of GtkHash, launch the app and add the file by clicking the Browse icon in the File section. Also, if you want to match the checksum of the original file with your downloaded copy, paste the original hash value in the check field and click the hash button. That’s it you will get the string.

Quickhash ( Windows/ Mac/ Linux )

Quickhash is one of the most reliable and versatile hash checker and hash generator tool for Windows, macOS and Linux. The overall usage of Quickhash is not that easy, it has a more complex UI. However, a complex UI means more features, thus we can say that Quickhash is a tool which has the most features amongst other hash checker and generators. In return, the support list of algorithms is very limited. Below are the few hash algorithms that are supported by QuickHash.

• MD5
• SHA1
• SHA256
• SHA512
• xxHash64

Quickhash can check hash code or MD5 checksum for a single file, multiple files or even all the files in an entire folder or disk. Quickhash can also compare the hash codes or MD5 checksums of two different files or folders, which is a very good feature.

Download QuickHash hash checker for Windows, Mac, and Linux (Debian) from quickhash-gui.org

Hash generator ( WIndows )

Another free hash checker tool that can check the hash or generate and compute the checksums of more than 16 popular hash algorithm is the Hash generator. The types of an algorithm that the Hash generator supports are listed below.

• MD5 family (md2, md4, md5)
• SHA family (sha1, sha256, sha384, sha512)
• LM
• NTLM
• ROT13
• CRC32
• BASE64
• ADLER32
• HAVAL256
• RIPEMD160
• WHIRLPOOL

This hash generator even lets you export the complete list of hash values to a text, HTML, XML or CSV file. With the help of a Hash generator, you can verify the checksum of MD5 or SHA encrypted files, not only that you can even generate a new hash value for any text.

• Download and install the Hash Generator on your Windows PC.
• Now to check the checksum of a file, just click the browse button. or you can simply drag and drop the file.
• To generate the hash for a text, you will have to select the text option and paste your text.
• Now, click the Generate Hash button and after which you can see a list of checksums or hash values for all of the 16 hash algorithm types.

HashTab Hash Checker ( Windows )

HashTab is yet another great hash and checksum generator and a tool to verify the checksums as well. The Hashtab supports up to 30 different types of hash algorithms. But, only MD5, CRC32 and SHA1 hashes are available by default. To enable the additional hash types all you need to do is go to settings and enable them. Earlier, Hashtab was also available for Mac as a paid app, but later on, it was taken down from the iTunes Store.

hashtab adds a tab called File hashes in the properties menu of a file. Here is a quick tutorial on how to use Hashtab.

1. Right-click the file on which you want to check the MD5 checksum or hash value.
2. From the context menu >> CLick on Properties >> File Hashes.
3. Now, the tool will automatically list the Hash value or checksum of CRC32, MD5 and SHA-1.
4. To add more Hash algorithms, just go to settings and select the hash types you would like to add.

Verify MD5sum on Android

To check the MD5 checksum on your Android smartphone or tablet, there are some good Android apps through which you can do so. The most reliable apps from the Google Play store that can check the Hash and checksum is the Hash Droid. It supports multiple different types of algorithms like MD5 hash check but also Adler-32, CRC-32, Haval-128, MD2, MD4, RIPEMD-128, RIPEMD-160, SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512, Tiger, and Whirlpool.

Another good Android app called Crypto- Tools for Encryption and Cryptography just makes the job done in no time. There are checksum tools in the app to verify the hash of a file.

Online Hash Checker

If you don’t want to install any of the tools mentioned above on your PC, you can definitely use an online hash checker as an alternative. Online Tools is the best hash checker website to check the hash checksum of a file. Most importantly, it is an ad-free and open-source platform that offers a huge range of hash algorithms, we have listed them below.

• CRC-16
• CRC-32
• MD2
• MD4
• MD5
• SHA1
• SHA224
• SHA256
• SHA384
• SHA512
• SHA512/224
• SHA512/256
• SHA3-224
• SHA3-256
• SHA3-384
• SHA3-512
• Keccak-224
• Keccak-256
• Keccak-384
• Keccak-512
• Shake-128

All you need to do is visit Online tools, then select the file hash type, and drop your file.

Hasher Hash Generator Extension

If you are looking for a good reliable and trustworthy hash checker that doesn’t take up a lot of resources then the hasher Chrome extension is the one to go for. It is a very easy-to-use utility that can compute cryptographic hashes.

If you have added the hasher extension to your browser, all you need to do is just launch the extension and then enter the text of which you want to generate the Has, HMAC, CRC ad other checksums.

Conclusion

All of the methods mentioned above to check the hash and checksums or to generate a hash file are all great and reliable. It is always a good thing to check and verify the MD5 checksum or SHA value of a file. Checking and verifying the MD5 of a file helps us in making sure that the data is not corrupted, tampered or can harm us in any case. Also, the tools through which you can check the hash and checksums, are always better than the online hash checker, you can’t rely on online ones, but you can definitely rely on the results of the checksum tools.

Also read: What is XAPK file? How to Install XAPK File?