Even though it's not something that most users have to deal with daily, hashing can prove to be important for a wide range of applications such as database management as well as data authentication and security.

Usually, as a typical user, I often compare hashes in order to ensure the integrity of various apps and files. It's a good starting point for anyone looking to ensure that the program or file hasn't been tampered with (and matches the source).

If, for example, you're curious to know what type of hash algorithm an app or a file has, then you can either use an online tool, or even better, you could use Hashes.

Hashes is a beautiful and minimalist application that allows you to identify hash algorithm types. This tiny hash algorithm identification app is free and open-source, and it's mainly built for GNOME desktop environments (built using GTK4+ and Libadwaita).

At its core, Hashes uses an API called Name-That-Hash (a pretty modern and sleek hash identification system), and Bottles and Dialect for a bit of inspiration when it comes to dealing with Python projects using Meson and the CLI in Python (PyGObject app).

Since the sole purpose of the app is to provide you with a quick and easy way of discovering what hash algorithm type is used on any particular string, the app is not what one might call feature-packed.

The user interaction is kept to a bare minimum and everything is automated. Simply enter the hash string at the top of the app's GUI and that's about it, all the relevant information will be displayed instantly.

It's a good time to point out that the hashes are somewhat sorted by popularity. This means that the most popular hashes (or hash types) will be displayed at the top (such as SHA-1, HMAC-SHA1, Haval-128, etc.). Last but not least, the app also supports GNOME themes. The process is fully automated as well.

While not the most impressive app out there, Hashes is a nice and very useful little application that's well worth checking out if you're interested in what types of hashes are used on various strings.