This one for the ubergeeks, amongst which I (hopefully) count myself. HashTab is a free Windows Explorer extension that adds a new “File Hashes” tab in the right click/properties dialog that simply displays the file’s calculated hash value, in order to verify a files’s integrity and authenticity.
Another feature that your brand new Hash Tab offers: to compare the hash values of another file to the one you are looking at.
HashTab supports multiple hash algorithms such as CRC32,MD5, SHA1, SHA2, RipeMD, HAVAL and Whirlpool. Windows and Mac OSX versions available
If you don’t know what they are, hash calculations are methods to reduce a file into a single unique number or identifier. You can calculate a hash number for pretty much any kind of file using any number of possible algorithms; however, should that file change at all, its hash number will change as well. Thus hash values are used to identify the authenticity of files, whether they have been changed or compromised by malware, or to compare files that may be the same but have different file names. Typically, a lot of download sites will list the MD5 hash along with the download link, allowing you to check that the file you downloaded is indeed the right file.
How to use: right click any file, select ’properties’ then click on the ’File Hashes’ tab. You will see a list of hash values.
If the algorithm you want is not listed click on the “options” link then check the appropriate algorithm to include it in the list of results (see screenshot to the right).
The verdict: what HashTab does is make it easy and simple to check has values calculated via multiple algorithms all at once from within Windows. Simple, yet very nice if its something you need to do. I post it here because I simply like the elegance of it.
Version Tested: 3.0
Compatibility: Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7. Mac OSX.
Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 781K).
