I hate attachments, and I hate having to download files in order to view them. Maybe it's a form I really do want to download, or maybe it's something that's going to eat up space in my downloads folder until I get around to deleting it.
Google is making it easier, starting with PDFs. They've introduced a new Quick View feature in search results. Rather than using the clunky View as HTML function, which ruined formatting and often made documents unreadable, Quick View lets you view and navigate the PDF. It's like the Quick Look option on Macs. They're adding more document types in the future.
If you're using an Acrobat plug-in for IE or Firefox, you can already view PDFs in your browser window, so this may not be impressive news. However, you don't need a plug-in to view these PDFs, and even Macs can see inline PDFs with Quick View. As they add more document types, it will get much more impressive.
When I asked a Google spokesperson if they had any plans for Office documents, I was told "While we don't have anything to announce at this time, we're looking at various ways to improve this tool, including expanding to some additional document types."