14 DAY TRIAL // That's it. Say goodbye to sending JavaScript attachments via Gmail because the mailing service has turned its back on it for good.
The move was announced a few weeks back and it's simply a security move since so much malware has been found hiding in JavaScript in recent years, with the situation escalating over the past few months.
Now, if you try to send a JavaScript attachment using Gmail or if you want to download such an attachment from an older email, you'll get a new warning saying "Blocked for security reasons." Alternatively, you'll also find the message "1 attachment contains a virus or blocked file. Downloading this attachment is disabled."
Not the only one blocked
There's a long list of file types that have been blocked by Gmail over the years for security reasons, including .exe, .jar, or .pif, to name a few.
"To prevent against potential viruses, Gmail doesn't allow you to attach certain types of files, including: certain file types (listed above), including their compressed form (like .gz or .bz2 files) or when found within archives (like .zip or .tgz files), documents with malicious macros, archives whose listed file content is password protected, archives whose content includes a password protected archive," reads Google's blog post about the situation.
There are some workarounds Google set in place if you really, really want to send a JavaScript attachment, namely by attaching it via Google Drive, Google Cloud Storage, or any other storage solution. That's mainly because once you upload a file to a cloud service such as Google Drive, it automatically gets screened for viruses and malware, which works even if the file has been archived in a .zip or .rar, for instance.
Then, when you're sending people the download link, they know it's supposed to be safe because it's already been scanned and their risk levels are lower.