Checking the MD5 hash of your files is a way to confirm the originality of the file and also make sure that your download is not corrupted or damaged. While is strongly recommended to perform this action, many people avoid it, because they are lazy or do not know how to do it.
Hash Checker is a Nautilus script (or stand-alone) that will do this job in seconds!
Installation
First of you have to download the script ;) Unzip it and run the Setup file, that calls a simple Zenity installer. Hash Check has an isolated installation, just for your account.
Hash Checker comes in eleven languages
The usual terms? Nah, its author Petar Kulić (Cooleech) warns that this software might damage your health! This is not a joke, as many Open Source Apps can drive you insane! However this is not the case, as Hash Checker is a well established software with not major bugs.
Hash Checker is now installed under $HOME/.HashCheck and it also creates a launched icon in your desktop. If you don’t have nautilus to handle your desktop just remove this.
Uninstall
Because some users are “afraid” to install things in Linux outside their package manager as they do not know how to uninstall them later on, I will refer the uninstall process. You can uninstall it manually by deleting the files in
$HOME/.HashCheck $HOME/Desktop/Hash Cheker $HOME/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/Check hash
If you think that the above method is complicated luckily there is a better way. Just run the Setup again!
To be honest I don’t like what author has done here. The huge Warning!!! is totally unnecessary, is not even a good joke and it can confuse users as it seems that something bad will happen if you uninstall it, which is not true. Anyway..
Usage
Navigate with Nautilus in the file that you want to check, Right Click on it -> Script -> Check Hash
You can check for MD5, SHA and SHA256, and also you can save the Hashes in text files inside the current folder.
After the check is done, you get a handy option to check for these Hashes on Google. Nice one, if you haven’t keep the correct Hashes!
If you do not want to load Nautilus with Scripts you can run Hash Checker as a standalone App. Remove the Scripts as indicated above, and start Hash Checker from its shortcut that you can place anywhere. For example you can add it inside your Gnome Shell applications on Accessories Category.
Overall
Simply the best Hash Checker App and a must have!