drdrHash

Although it has the same name, whenever you download a file, you cannot be sure that it has not been changed in some way from the original. The simplest way to determine whether it is the same file is to check its digital signature.

drdrHash is a tiny piece of software designed to help you establish the hash of the file and that packs several other useful functions for data management.

Since it is portable, the application does not require any installation, but rather you can decompress the archive in any desired location on your hard disk. Upon launch, you are welcomed by a clean, yet minimalistic interface that includes a tab for each of the file management operation it can perform.

You can hash text, grab the digital signatures as well as split, merge, transcode, analyze or scan the files on your computer. The app can be launched in Command Line where you can perform even more operations, including, but not limited to seek origins, find errors, create a new file or checking if the directory where it is stored exists in the file system.

The options can come in handy if you regularly download files that you need to process before forwarding via email or uploading for instance.

As far as its primary function is concerned, the application allows you to hash a text that you paste or type directly into the dedicated field. In case you want to learn the digital signature of a document, clip or audio you just downloaded, then you can drag and drop it and the computed hash is generated in a matter of seconds.

The app supports five types of hash, namely CRC32, MD5, SHA-1, SHA256 and SHA512. The signature generated can be copied or saved so that you can use it for comparison later on.

Irrespective of whether you want to check that you just downloaded the same file and simply need a tool that lets you split, merge or transcode it before you upload or email it back, then perhaps drdrHash might be worth a try.