Tooleux

Hash and checksum tools

Hashing turns any input into a fixed-length fingerprint. Cryptographic hashes (SHA, BLAKE, SHA-3) are used for integrity and authentication. Checksums (CRC, Adler-32, XXH) are used for fast error detection.

About hash tools

Cryptographic hashes must be collision-resistant and preimage-resistant. Changing one byte of input should change the entire output, and it should be impractical to find two inputs that produce the same hash. SHA-256, SHA-512, and SHA-3 meet these requirements. MD5 and SHA-1 no longer do.

Checksums are faster but weaker. CRC-32 and Adler-32 catch accidental bit flips in files and network packets. XXH3 is a modern non-cryptographic hash used by databases and compression libraries. None of them should be used for security.

Keyed hashes (HMAC) add a secret to a hash, proving both integrity and authenticity. Use them for API signatures, cookies, and message authentication. Password hashing is a different problem entirely, solved with Argon2, scrypt, or bcrypt, which are intentionally slow.