You will no longer need to download a video from Gmail sent to you to see it, but at least not in the desktop version of Google’s mail service. The search engine company announced this morning that from now on these videos can be seen directly in streaming from Gmail itself without having to download anything.

At the moment the function has been announced today for the web version of Gmail, and to perform the streaming will use the same infrastructure as YouTube and Google Drive. The function is only valid for small videos, since as we know Gmail only allows to send videos of up to 25 MB. To send larger videos will have to go through Google Drive, something that allows you to see them in streaming without having to download them independently of Gmail.

This new feature begins to spread from today, and will allow videos to be played with an optimal quality according to Google. Still, depending on how long Google is going to spread the feature from now on, it may take a few days or a couple of weeks until everyone can use it.

A good way to combat malware

It seems a minor change, but in reality it is an extremely important security measure. Keep in mind that one of the most common methods of spreading malware through email is precisely to camouflage viruses and exploits by making them look like multimedia files, so that the user always tries to download them and execute them believing that he will watch a video or Photography.

Therefore, this new feature that makes you no longer need to download a video to see it is also a good defense method against this type of attack, because if a video does not play well online when you try to open it in Gmail you can suspect that maybe you should not even try to download it.