To some, email account is just a simple tool needed to register at Facebook, and while they may hardly login that email, some others uses email accounts for important tasks such as one’s online banking activities, which is why Google is adding another layer of security to its popular email service.

It’ doesn’t matter how secure you are, there’s always a way to lose your account be it whether it got hacked or your information got compromised because some other web services got hacked. Well Gmail users rejoice, as Google has somewhat tapped up the security of Gmail in some sense of a way. The new security feature is called a 2-step verification feature that can add another layer of security onto your Google account.

Now this is not a simple ‘key in your username and password and the code below’ drill. After you activate the new feature which will be slowly rolled out over the next few days, the next time you log into your Google account, you’ll have to key in a password and a code which will be sent to your phone. Google will either call you with the code, send you an SMS message or give you the choice to generate the code yourself using a mobile application on Android, BlackBerry or iPhone devices so no, you do not need to have cellular or internet connection all the time.

But don’t worry, if you think that password is secure enough for you and do not wish to have another redundant step to waste your precious, you’ll be glad to hear that this is an optional feature. For those who are interested, you’ll have to log into your Google Account settings page and activate it.