About Hash Generator
Hash text with five algorithms at once. Digests are computed locally through the Web Crypto API, so the input never leaves your machine - which matters, because people hash things they should not paste into a website.
Which algorithm to use
SHA-256 is the sensible default for integrity checks and fingerprints. MD5 and SHA-1 both have practical collision attacks: two different inputs can be made to share a digest, so neither can prove a file is unaltered. They remain useful only as checksums against accidental corruption, and for matching legacy systems that already use them.
Hashing is not password storage
A plain digest of a password is fast to compute, which is exactly what an attacker with a stolen database wants. Password storage needs a deliberately slow, salted algorithm such as bcrypt, scrypt or Argon2 - never a bare SHA-256.
Frequently asked questions
- Can a hash be reversed?
- Not directly, but short or predictable inputs can be recovered by hashing every candidate and comparing. That is why unsalted hashes of passwords or email addresses offer far less protection than people assume.
- Why is MD5 still everywhere?
- It is fast and short, and plenty of tooling adopted it before the attacks were practical. As a guard against a corrupted download it is fine; as proof that nobody tampered with a file it is worthless.
- Do these match the shasum command?
- Yes, for the same bytes. Note that hashing a file includes any trailing newline, so text typed here may differ from a file that ends with one.