If it simply blocks the .exe files, rename your file.exe as file.brol, send it in a gmail mail and tell your friend to rename file.brol to file.exe !

Do you have to download anything to have the virus scanner be effective?
bachdot

Now that all the hub bub seems to have died down, I'd like to make one small point -

No one yet knows what sort of antivirus solution GMail is supposedly using. Certainly not one of the more commercial ones or else they'd more likely have advertised it as a USP. Knowing Google and its strong support for FOSS (Free and Open Source Software), I wouldn't be in the least surprised if they employed ClamWin or some other similar solution.

If anyone comes across any article or info on GMail's antivirus provider please post it here. Quite eager to know who's cleaning up GMail.

ClamWin seems not to have any on-access scanner facilities. You have to manually scan the files. So, i would say it can not be naturally used for non-outlook mail testing.

I think it's a jolly good idea for Google to scan e-mails for viruses during upload / download. If specialists want to get hold of a virus to evaluate it, they'd just as easily search it down through a P2P network; lols, infact, all it takes now-a-days to attract viruses is to just leave a computer online without a firewall - and kawablammm... you're hosting a computer well and truely infected.

Gmail, is doing the general populance a really good deed by not allowing e-mail attachments with viruses that it detects. This would also really draw potential users to rely more and more, since they'd be able to trust them to tranfer all e-mails without any malacious attachments.

oh, i had no idea it does not let send any file which has and .exe extension, this is really "over protective" they better would get the mime type and scan the file for viruses.. what happens if you archive the .exe file ? or even archive it with a password

and renaming .exe to .something-else is really annoying in my opinion :S

i own a gmail too. its one of the best email providers. the bad with the antiviruses is that they dont let u send an exe file. it would be good if you could sent programs but, anw its a nice email provider, better than others.

Hasn't Gmail always had an antivirus service? Because whenever I try to send or receive .EXE extension files, it says couldn't send or this file is potentially unsafe? But if not, then this would be a good step for Gmail and Google. More people will start to trust it and might start using it over other email clients such as Yahoo or Hotmail.



I don't think I agree with you nightfox. Gmail is just doing what other email clients are or should be doing. By being "way over protective" they are doing their job and helping out more people.



But I do agree with you on this nightfox. I hate it that I can't send or receive these type of files. It's not just these extensions. Gmail also can't send or receive database that have been made by Microsoft Access, i'm not sure why though. I agree that they should be scanned, because in the end it's up to the user to decide whether or not to download the files.

Ok, a simplest solution would be to test this stuff right now. I have few programs, that Antiviruses don't like too much, It's a type of software that have some specific alogorhytms for dismantlein software aplications and such, and quite a few antiviruses found them to be trojans or some kind viruses... I will try now to send that file to myself... and see what happens. Btw. it's *.exe (excutable) file, and Im using Mozilla Thunderbird to send it via GMail, and I also have Avast Antivirus which is disabled.
...Ok I sent that mail now, and Gmail responded with:

So, no EXE files. Let's try with ZIP compression. Ok, so Gmail gives again the sam error code as above.
I will try now with RAR compression. ... And again out of luck, the same error code occurs form Gmail.
And what is the solution? You will have to use compression and set a password. It's the only way you will able to send *viruses* or EXE files (that are not viruses but antivirus software declare that they are). So, compress files into ZIP or RAR archive and put a password there... Actually password in copressed file locks the file for reading, so basicly antivirus can't get to the file, and passes it. Like this:
And just last *notice*, you will must rename the compressed file like I did, you can see that in picture, rename it to SOMETHING.ZIP_ or SOMETHING.RAR_ or similar stuff.

and i thought virus scanning was included.. hahaha.. i'm surprised, and good they are improving..

but what i wanted from gmail is: an automatic message when the recipient reads the email! i would love that!!