Comments on: Check MD5 Hash on your Mac

By: How to Open a Zip File That Turns Into a CPGZ

How to Open a Zip File That Turns Into a CPGZ — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 19:29:59 +0000

[...] loop is usually best handled in a few different ways. Before beginning, you may want to check the md5 hash or SHA1 of the origin file if possible, that can easily tell you if the file was corrupted or is [...]

By: World's Fattest Man

World's Fattest Man — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 11:31:01 +0000

I am so fat i can’t check the MD5 of iAtkos L1.DMG

By: Monberg

Monberg — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 09:12:05 +0000

Sweet! Coming to Mac from Windows i was a bit intimidated by the lack of all my usual (GUI) tools. But diving into the power of Term is a really rewarding experience. It sometimes makes me wish that i didn’t grow up with Windows…

By: Petur

Petur — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 08:17:45 +0000

I made a GUI program which does the same… http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id465533447?mt=12

By: fribbley

fribbley — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 19:29:48 +0000

hey DogsRULE: you’re an idiot. In a couple years, if you make it to high school you might learn about being a big boy and keeping your fool mouth shut when you have no idea what you’re talking about.

By: Alex

Alex — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 18:02:36 +0000

Yeah DogsRULE, you are right, there were a lot of people in the develop of the MD5, SHA1 (etc) hashes just for people to be able to download torrents.
That’s the only use.

I’ll give you another use, just to enlighten you, I use the MD5 to check on daily basis if my web site files were modified. This way, if there is a hacking attact to my site, I find out before Google banns my site.

Another use? if you are making changing to your system, and want to know what files were changed by another process, you can relay on before/after md5 hashes

Also, every piece of software available for download should publish a md5 hash or similar, so if you downloaded a whole Linux Distro, you can check if the download is good before you burn a DVD and try to install it.

By: Limera1n Download

Limera1n Download — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 20:40:55 +0000

[...] Mac’s checking the md5 hash is very easy, just use the md5 command line tool. You can do this on your Mac to check the md5 hash [...]

By: What is MD5? - OS X Daily

What is MD5? - OS X Daily — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:29:37 +0000

[...] unofficially at 4% worldwideSnow Leopard Incompatible Software List from AppleMessiest Desktop Ever?Check MD5 Hash on your MacWarning! Obscure Snow Leopard bug deletes entire user accounts!MacBook Keyboard Backlight Controls [...]

By: Check MD5 Hash on your Mac | Daily Tips for You

Check MD5 Hash on your Mac | Daily Tips for You — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 02:11:17 +0000

[...] more here: Check MD5 Hash on your Mac You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a [...]

By: Woodgie

Woodgie — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 20:34:44 +0000

Nope, it isn’t.

I regularly use it to check if 2 files that outwardly look the same (same size etc.) are actually the same. I’ll also use it (or to be more accurate, SHA1, the same as the hint above. Just substitute SHA1 for MD5 in the openssl command) as a quick and easy way to verify to people that attachments I’m eMailing them have not been tampered with. It’s the same basic theory as using a digital signature.

Then you have http://support.apple.com/kb/DL930 and the like. Yep, Apple themselves use SHA1 (which is really just a ‘more accurate’ version of MD5 (yes, I KNOW how wrong that comment actually is!) to verify the contents of updates to the OS.

It’s also used by online retailers and things like the Fink package manager. I could go on but I realise quite how boring I can be

So no, not just torrents.

By: DogsRULE

DogsRULE — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:15:35 +0000

the only reason to use MD5 on a Mac is for torrents