SFV
Simple file verification (SFV) is a file format for storing CRC32 checksums of files to verify the integrity of files.
What is SFV file?
The .sfv file extension is usually used for SFV files. SFV is used to verify that a file has not been corrupted, but does not otherwise verify its authenticity. Despite the weaknesses of the SFV format, it is popular due to the relatively small amount of time taken by SFV utilities to calculate the CRC32 checksums when compared to the time taken to calculate cryptographic hashes such as MD5 or SHA-1.
SFV uses a plain text file containing one line for each file and its checksum in the format FILENAMECHECKSUM. Any line starting with a semicolon ';' is considered to be a comment and is ignored for the purposes of file verification. The delimiter between the filename and checksum is always one or several spaces; tabs are never used. A sample SFV file is:
file_one.zip c45ad668
file_two.zip 7903b8e6
file_three.zip e99a65fb
How to use SFV file?
QuickSFV
When you are transferring large files or groups of files over the Internet, it is important to make sure that the files do not get corrupted or damaged during the transfer. Simple File Verification files, called SFV files, store a list of data that can be compared to the downloaded files to determine if any of the downloaded files are corrupt, missing or the wrong size. SFV files need a third-party software program to open and reference them.
There are a few nice software applications available that can open an SFV file and run a check on the downloaded archive. For example, QuickSFV is a good choice to open SFV files.
You should now be able to open any SFV files that may have come bundled with your downloaded archives and check the archive for corruption. Simply browse to and double click the .sfv file to open it with QuickSFV.