How does verifying the checksum confirm the integrity of a downloaded file, when it’s posted on the same website the file came from?
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There are multiple ‘practical’ reasons for a checksum
1. To verify the file downloaded correctly. This is your question. Where the checksum is posted on the same website as the download. The internet doesn’t work perfectly. As data is sent to you, things can get corrupted. Think of it like a friend reading you a long book and you write it down as you hear it. You might write things down wrong. I’ll give an actual. I had to download a ps4 flash file one time. It was pretty big. I kept trying to download it and the ps4 kept rejecting it saying the file is corrupt. I tried it a few times and the same result. I then tried to directly download the file using an ethernet cable. It worked fine. Apparently when I was trying to download it via WIFI, it was being corrupted.
2. To make sure the file you download is the one you want. This is very useful if you are downloaded a file from a another site. You get the checksum from the ‘official’ site and then download it from the other site and make sure it has the correct checksum. This generally is done to make sure the other site isn’t hosting malware or a virus or a different version or something.
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