Many download websites and developers display a so called MD5 hash code of the application that you want to download on their website which can be used to verify the integrity and authenticity of it. This can be done by comparing the MD5 hash code of the downloaded file with the one on the homepage where you did download it from.
The hash has to be the same, if it is not either the download went wrong or someone tampered with the file in some way. This could be that a virus or trojan was added to it for instance.
HashTab is a Windows Shell extension that adds a File Hashes tab to the properties window when right-clicking a file. It does display the hashes of several algorithms including MD5 or CRC32 and even has a button to easily compare hashes. That’s better than manually trying to compare the 32 digit+ hashes.

Read Related Posts
5 Responses to “Verify the integrity and authenticity of files”
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
-
[...] del explorador de Windows y permite acceder a los datos de tamaño de fichero (MD5, SHA1 y CRC-32), para de esta manera comprobar su integridad y autenticidad de los [...]
-
[...] Fuente: gHacks [...]
-
[...] 原文链接。 [...]

Hash Tab Shell Extension
Verify File Integrity Of Backups
Check File Integrity With HashTab
File Integrity Check
Calculate File Hashes
Firefox Hash Algorithm Check
Check MD5 Hashes
Oh a new version of HashTab. This is definitely a must-have tool taking no space on HDD or in memory.
I use a fairly old program called digestIT (http://www.kennethballard.com/modules/xproject/index.php?op=viewSummary&pid=2). It allows you to calculate and verify the MD5 and SHA-1 hashes for a particular file. Small, fast and it’s a shell extension, so you can right-click and get an answer.