Tom’s Hash Explorer

Tom’s Hash Explorer is a lightweight piece of software that enables you to calculate the cryptographic values for the files you want to download to your computer and hence, help you determine their overall integrity.

The installation is quick, uneventful and does not require any special attention from your part. Upon launch, you are welcomed by an intuitive and easy to navigate UI. While in the left side you can preview all the drives connected to the computer, the larger right panel is dedicated to displaying relevant information about the files stored in the directories.

The program allows you to perform multiple hash checks for the file and calculating the values is an uncomplicated matter of clicking on the desired algorithm from the toolbar. You can either navigate to the desired location from the dedicated pane or you can drag and drop the files you want to check.

Among the algorithms that you can calculate via the application, you can could MDS, SHA-1, SHA-2 (256), SHA-2 (384), SHA-2 (512) and Shannon's Entropy. The hash can be calculated in a matter of seconds, depending on the number of files you are verifying.

You will be happy to learn that the utility allows you export the results to different file formats so that you can use them for other projects and applications, such as whitelisting apps, for instance. To put it simply, you can export the results to RTF, PDF, CSV or XLS file formats.

At the same time, the program enables you to print the results, so that you can present them as extra documentation during a meeting for example. It is worth mentioning that the tool supports print preview and includes advanced page setup, so you can include an appropriate header, footer and even add a watermark, if necessary.

In the eventuality that you want to determine whether the files you are about to copy to your hard drives are identical to the ones you are expecting, then one alternative would be to check for their cryptographic values. Tom’s Hash Explorer is a useful tool that allows you to automatically perform a hash check and hence, can know if the files have been tempered with or are corrupted.