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GMail Adds Virus Protection
AxsDeny writes "Google has rolled out virus protection for it's web based email service. Apparently they are scanning incoming and outgoing messages for infected messages. Read more on their "what's new" page."
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That's it, that's EVIL and I'm quitting GMail now!
GMail has been my faithful virus depository, now where can I go today? HoTMaiL?
I wish it gives users the option to still retrieve the virus if they insist.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIR US-TEST-FILE!$H+H* makes it through fine.
.. can we say Google is now replicating? :)
This in itself is not surprising -- it's a natural step that Google had to take in order to compete with the other biggies in the business. What I'm more interested in knowing is if Google has put that army of Ph.D.'s into developing the AV technology. I don't see any other reason to wait so long for adding virus protection -- they could just as easily have licensed some commercial AV months ago, seeing as AV is one of the features that novice Internet users look for most. Now that MS is into AV, will Google follow suit? I'm hoping...
An old-timer with old-timey ideas.
Not on the same day MS starts beta testing their anti-virus solution.
I'm gonna fucking kill this guy, I did it before and I'll do it again, I'm gonna fucking kill google!
Where's a chair?
So what? Yahoo and the other big players have had this for years. That's like announcing that Ford is now selling cars with anti-lock brakes and power steering. That's great and all, but I wouldn't consider that news.
I use GMail on OS X so I don't need it...
</sarcasm>
This
"Oh come on... Why keep up the pretence of being 'editors' if you don't even fix stupid mistakes like it's versus its?"
I was all excited about the virus protection in GMail until you pointed that out.
"Derp de derp."
If the virus can't be removed from the file, you won't be able to download it.
......
If a virus is found in an attachment you're trying to send, you won't be able to send the message until you remove the attachment.
Now I know Google is pretty good and reliable, but that's sort of a harsh way to do business. There should be some sort of work-around if Google gets it wrong on what is and isn't a virus (which I assume they are going to do sooner or later). I mean, a false positive would get you cut off from what could be vital information. If that happens to someone, they'll be mad, even though it was done for a good reason. I hope they at least warn the people that there was an attachment.
Actually the "What's New" page is here, not what was linked to.
Also, I'm still pissed they havent added the option to empty the spam folder, yes I know it gets automagically deleted after 30 days, but I'd like to clear it out without having to go through 30 pages.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
flag mp3s and archives as unsafe by default?
perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
So much for the .zip.remove.everything.after.the.first.zip.includi ng.the.period files.
From the page..
"If the virus can't be removed from the file, you won't be able to download it"
All that talk about false positive and important (project/contract saving) mails sounds so important suddenly...
I've got 10k+ e-mails in my gmail account, though, and I don't think any have any virus-laden attachments, though.
What I really want is a "yes, I'm unilingual, I speak English and if an e-mail isn't in English, its spam" setting.
Its the damn grammar nazis again to ruin the hype.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
... but they are no longer allowing ANY zipfiles containing .exes to be transmitted to a gmail account.
That's obviously pretty damned annoying for people who actually work with zipfiles. "Here, give this version a try." "What version?"
I've sent them polite feedback requests to stop doing that. Other services scan zipfile contents for known viruses; Google is just dropping the zipfiles altogether. In my message to their support folks, I pointed out that letting virus writers dictate the design of your mail service isn't the best long-term business model.
This is a natural outgrowth of the fact that they can't effectively index virii.
Therefore, they must be destroyed.
They have gmail scanning for viruses... They have google desktop indexing the files...
Soon, they'll release a google-desktop extension that scans viruses on windows.
google really is taking over microsoft (windows)
If you're going to try to be pedantic, at least be accurate. "pretence" is perfectly valid here.
Does this mean Google will be targetting their advertising based on the kind and number of viruses they filter out?
For people who get a lot of viruses, they can advertise privacy tools, anti-virus software and adware removers.
For people who do not get a lot of viruses, they get to see ads for social networks, dating sites, etc.
*
Or is it?
pretence P Pronunciation Key (prtns, pr-tns)
n. Chiefly British
Variant of pretense.
pretence
n 1: a false or unsupportable quality [syn: pretension, pretense] 2: an artful or simulated semblance; "under the guise of friendship he betrayed them" [syn: guise, pretense, pretext] 3: pretending with intention to deceive [syn: pretense, feigning, dissembling] 4: imaginative intellectual play [syn: pretense, make-believe] 5: the act of giving a false appearance; "his conformity was only pretending" [syn: pretense, pretending, simulation, feigning]
(source: Dictionary.com)
*Sorry, I had trouble resisting after being beat down by the grammar Nazis my self. It's really just a regional thing here.
-Buddy of DoQ
following the trend for MS, it looks like hotmail is copying gmail and checking for viruses as well. :)
Because I am getting tired of renaming my files and explaining n00b aunts how to re-rename the files when they receive them.
Google may not be able to stop fast moving threats because they don't reanalyze pages that often (unless they offered a proxy service), but they could stop corporate-sponsored malware by advertisers and less ethical site providers.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
The next, obvious, and far too long overdue, step is for Google to flag web-sites that attempt to install malware, redirect you to sites you didn't want to visit, spawn endless pop-up windows, attempt to create a full-screen browser that you can't close, or disable features of your browser like right mouse button clicks. Since they've already spidered it, and in most cases cached it, they can darn well scan it for viruses and other crap at the same time! Their virus, adware, spyware, malware signature files would certainly be more upto date than my own. They could even be protecting surfers now from the current unpatched IE exploit by warning of sites that have dodgy or questionable code while MS takes its own sweet time coming up with a patch.
The first decent search engine that takes this step to protect its users can count on the majority of my traffic.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
just change the extension to something other than zip and it goes through fine. In fact you can probably make it .gz or some other extension that winzip and clones understand and it should work (unless the javascript catcher is more adavanced then I think it is).
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
In a related story, editors at the popular tech website Slashdot today launched a major new development initiative, the aim of which is to create a groundbreaking new piece of vaporware known as "Dupe and Grammar Protection." The project, codenamed "HellFreeze", is currently slated to launch shortly after the Apocalypse.
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
You don't need to worry about that. I've noticed from the notifications from OpenOffice's mailing list that Gmail bounces any attachments it doesn't like without telling you. You won't get pissed off because you'll never know the email existed.
There is no god but Google and GTalk is the messenger of Google.
From what you read on "Linux Activist" only the login phase of email sessions is encrypted and protected from prying eyes... They could also address this kind of potential security breach instead of bothering me each time I try to send an executable...
I'll just write a program to email myself every file on my hard drive and see what fails, or maybe use that gmail as file system thingy.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Not directly related, but this reminds me of my college days. I used to work at the technology help desk. It took years to get spam protection on the email accounts at the school because some crazy staff members demanded that they receive EVERY SINGLE email sent to them. Eventually, a system was set up, and it allowed a user to log into a service that showed them what spam was blocked. If the user wanted, he or she could have any message in that list delivered. Then after a week or so, a message was permanently deleted from the quarantine if not delivered.
We phone-jockeys were informed that the system had certain levels of spam probability assigned to each message, and we could tell the users that. What we couldn't mention was that spam with the highest probablility didn't even make it to the quarantine. The spam problem was just so bad that we had to get rid of some of it, but we tricked everyone into thinking that they could get everything they received.
It's scary being a Flash and Flex developer on Slashdot. You guys are unnaturally rabid.
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Seems like there's a nice beat, but I'll have to wait till I get home from work to really crank it up.
Will I get ads based on the Virus ???