An online MD5 generator is a useful tool to check integrity of files, and especially of those that you download from your website. There could be several reasons for you downloading files from your website. You may want to keep a backup copy, or you may want to switch to another web host, or you want to replace a file with a newer version.
In all these cases you cannot be sure that the file or files that you have downloaded are not corrupted. To ensure that your files are intact, you should use a MD5 generator.
MD5 stands for Message Digest algorithm 5. It was invented by Ronald Rivest in 1991. He invented two previous versions before this, which are known as MD2 and MD3. The idea was to take up random text or binary and generate a fixed length ‘128 bit hash value’. Regardless of the length of the data file the generated MD5 value will be fixed.
An MD5 will look like:
f4d909c290c0fb1ca068ffaddf22cbd0
MD5 was originally designed as a cryptographic code for message authentication code to be used on the internet. However MD5 was attacked by Flame malware in 2012 and was deemed unfit for further usage. Collision vulnerability was the main weakness of MD5 that was highlighted. Today within minutes a collision MD5 can be generated on an off the shelf computer. MD5 is no longer recommended to be used for digital signature verification. SHA (Secure Hash Algorithm) 3 is being recommended as an alternative for MD5.
Despite these known weakness MD5 remains in popular use. Software developers use MD5 to ensure that their application files are intact after they have been downloaded on a user’s machine. Some operating systems also use this algorithm to check that the files downloaded are not corrupted. If the MD5 do not match, they remove the corrupted file and download the files afresh.
Let’s assume you want to download a lengthy text file from your website and you want to ensure that the file after downloading is complete and intact. You can generate an MD5 on the file on the website. After downloading it you can again generate an MD5. If both the MD5 are the same you can be rest assured that the file has not been corrupted during downloading.
In case the MD5 generated before and after downloading the file don’t match, you will know that the file is corrupted. Yes, files can get corrupted because of a number of reasons.
Therefore, before downloading a file generate its MD5 and repeat the procedure on your PC after the file is downloaded. You can generate the MD5 in other operating systems like UNIX, LINUX on your PC.
ou can use the MD5 generator both ways that is before and after uploading files to the internet and vice versa. A question often asked about MD5 encryption is that is it reversible? No, it’s not unless you know the encryption code which is a well kept secret.
You can use a md5 hash password generator if you want to encrypt passwords. You can also use a md5 hash generator for files before and after you download them.
Security on the internet has always remained a big issue as hackers are constantly trying to break in to secured systems and websites. To ward off these attacks a number of encryption tools have been developed and deployed by the computer industry. But none have gained the popularity of MD5.
Cracking passwords to get into secured sites, damaging the content of websites and infecting computers with viruses and other malware are the major worries of all internet users and website owners. No one wants intruders in their homes and neither do they want them invading their social media networks and websites.
MD5 can be used quite safely for ensuring the integrity of files. If you as a webmaster and don’t update your site often; you can use it to check the integrity of the pages on your site. No webmaster or SEO wants to get a message that the content on their website is corrupted. The simplest and easiest way to ensure that the site pages do not get corrupted is to check their integrity.
Always keep off site backups of your website content as a website can go down for a number of reasons. Having the latest backup will help you in getting your site operational again.
Using MD5 is just one of the security measures that we can employ to maintain the integrity of our website. There are several other measures that we must incorporate to keep our sites free from attacks.
Using an online MD5 generator is quite simple. From the navigation bar on your browser go to smallseotoolz.net and click on ‘Browse More Tools’. Scroll down the icons and click on ‘Online md5 Generator’ icon. It will display a window asking you to enter text. You can copy paste text in it and ‘Submit’ it. It will display the entered text and the MD5 Hash. You should copy/paste the hash value in another file and save it.
This tool is absolutely free to use and you can use it as many times as you want. It’s a very useful tool especially if you are involved in doing a lot of downloading and uploading of files to websites. You can even use it to check the security of any blog posts that you upload.
This quick and simple test will tell you whether the blogs you post on websites are being published without any intervention or tampering. In case the MD5 hash are not the same you can take corrective action. Any security measure that you use is meant to bring you peace of mind. Whether you lock your house, or passwords protect your mobile phone, laptop, etc the end purpose is to feel secure. MD5 will give you the same peace of mind regarding your website’s contents.
