Hashing is a free open source program for Microsoft Windows that you may use to generate hashes of files, and to compare these hashes.
Hashes are used for a variety of operations, for instance by security software to identify malicious files, for encryption, and also to identify files in general.
You may use hashes to make sure that backups are not corrupt, or that all files on a USB Flash drive can be still be read properly.
Hashing is compatible with all versions of Windows starting with Windows 7. It does not need to be installed, but requires the Microsoft .Net Framework 4.5.2 to run.
Tip: We have reviewed similar programs in the past. Check out our reviews of HashTab, MD5 Checker, Hash my Files, or the get-filehash PowerShell command.
Hashing
The core feature of Hashing is the calculation of file hashes. You drag and drop folders or files on the program interface to start the calculation right away. You don’t need to drag and drop all files at once; Hashing will add entries for any new files you add automatically without impacting the list of existing hashes.
Hashing picks up any file automatically, and parses folders for files to add those as well. It displays MD5, SHA1, SHA256 and RIPEMD160 hashes immediately after you drop the selection on the program window.
You may select any hash and right-click it to get options to copy the hash to the clipboard. You may also clear the data or remove one entry. The latter is useful if you plan to use the compare functionality that Hashing ships with.
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Basically, what it does is compare any file hash that it calculated with each other to find identical hashes. If it finds identical hashes it displays those in a new window. It lists the algorithm that it used to identify the hit, and lists options in the interface to use other algorithms for the comparison instead.
If you want to compare a source directory with a backup, you’d have to drag and drop both the source directory and the backup directory on the program interface.
This is not the best method for comparison though, but other options are missing in this regard. An option to export the hashes as JSON data is provided however so that you may run comparisons in other programs instead that are better suited for that.
The only other option provided is to change the theme.
Closing Words
Hashing is a simple program. It is fast, open source, supports four different algorithms, and does not need to be installed. The downside is that the comparison functionality is limited, and that it does not support options to import a list of hashes.