Gmail virus scanning draws some user complaints

IDG News Service - The virus-scanning feature Google Inc. added to its Gmail Web mail service this week has generated concern, bewilderment and disappointment among some users.

The three main complaints being aired in Gmail discussion groups are that the virus-scanning feature can't be turned off; that Gmail's long-standing virus protection, which blocks all executable file attachments, will remain in place; and that Google isn't saying which vendor is providing the antivirus technology.

A Google spokeswoman said that while Google gives thoughtful consideration to user feedback, for now it has no plans to make the antivirus feature optional, nor does it plan to stop blocking executables. She also declined to identify the source of the antivirus technology Google is using.

Disabling the virus-scanning feature would be convenient for users who may occasionally need to mail an infected file to an antivirus vendor for reporting purposes and for users who may regularly handle infected messages -- for example, IT professionals involved in antivirus work.

William Boyle, principal software engineer at Brooks Automation Inc. in Chelmsford, Mass., doesn't foresee being very inconvenienced, but he thinks Google should give users the option to turn off the feature.

"I just do not like to lose control over what I can send and/or receive," Boyle wrote in an e-mail interview with IDG News Service. "This may be a problem if I am trying to report a virus to someone."

"I am a systems software engineer and must be able to send and receive any sort of message," said Boyle, who has been using Gmail for about six months, but not as his primary account for work or personal communications.

Meanwhile, there are users feeling disappointed that Google is keeping in place its policy of blocking all executable file attachments in Gmail. Prior to the new virus-scanning feature, this had been Gmail's virus-protection method.

One such user is Thomas Quinlen, an attorney at McNabb, Bragorgos & Burgess PLLC in Memphis. "With virus scanning in place, the blocking is redundant," he wrote in an e-mail interview.

Quinlen, who uses Gmail as his primary e-mail account for personal communications, is inconvenienced by this feature whenever he has wanted to e-mail himself an application from one of his computers in order to install it in one or both of his other computers.

He has remote access to his work desktop PC from his laptop and from his home PC, he explained. "But if I am going to be disconnected from the Internet -- on an airplane, for instance -- I need the [work]