title: Why is md5 still widely used
body: <p>First, i should say that I am relatively new to programming so please be gentle with me if this is a naive or dumb question.</p>
  
  <p>Ok, so I am in the process of writing a small application, part of which will involve hashing user passwords.  After researching the best way to do this, md5 appears as a suggestion, almost as many times as it appears in articles criticizing its use.</p>
  
  <p>The alternatives are the likes of SHA-1 etc which are stronger and less likely to be cracked.  This makes perfect sense. </p>
  
  <p>To get to the point:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Why is md5 still widely used for hashing</li>
  <li>Should I automatically discount md5 for hashing passwords, or are there specific use cases where its use would actually be better than other hashing mechanisms?</li>
  </ol>