It wasn’t easy to work up much enthusiasm for fHash, at least initially. It’s only an MD5, SHA1, SHA256 and CRC32 hash calculator, after all – how interesting can it be?

But then we tried it, and… Okay, fHash is “only” a file hash calculator, but nicely implemented, with a lightweight, easy-to-use interface that makes it well worth a few minutes of your time.

The program is available as a portable open-source build for Windows XP and later, and there’s a $0.99 edition for OS X.

Whichever you choose, there’s no complexity to the interface. No ribbon, no menu, just about everything takes place in a single dialog.

Importing files is as easy as dragging and dropping them onto the window, or you can click “Open” and select whatever you need.

Drag and drop your files onto the program and the hashes are displayed

Whatever you’ve chosen, the program immediately calculates and displays their details: file name, size, modified date, version, MD5, SHA1, SHA256, CRC32.

Again, this is all very lightweight. The data isn’t spread across multiple tables, and there’s no XML report generator, it’s just displayed in a regular text box. Clicking “Copy” sends all the information to the clipboard, or you can select and copy just a part of it, as usual.

We dragged and dropped another file onto fHash, wondering if it would clear the first set of details, but no – additional file hashes are just tagged onto the end of the report, exactly as you’d hope. (There’s a “Clear” button for when you do want to delete everything and start again.)

If this isn’t quite convenient enough, an “Add to Context Menu” button adds a “Hash to fHash” to Explorer’s right-click file menu.

The only minor issue we noticed is that, if you click “Add to Context Menu”, fHash relaunches itself as an administrator to update your settings. Under normal UAC-enabled circumstances this means drag and drop from Explorer won’t work. Fortunately this is only temporary – close and relaunch the program without elevating and it’ll be back to normal.

FHash isn’t the most feature-packed of hash calculators, then, but it does more than enough for most people and is convenient and very comfortable to use. Check it out.

FHash is an open source tool for Windows XP and later, and a $0.99 app for OS X.