There is a disconnect between games installed through Galaxy and offline installers downloaded through Galaxy, but not between offline installers downloaded through Galaxy and offline installers downloaded through the browser. Offline installers are offline installers.

Either the blue misunderstood the question (thought it was about games installed by Galaxy) or you misunderstood the answer. Please show me the exact post that you think contradicts what I'm saying, so I can see the context.

Here it is

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/gog_commitments_to_update_parity/post9

Yes, I saw that post. It doesn't say what you seem to think it says. "GOG Galaxy updates" means updates installed by clicking the "Update" button on a game in Galaxy.

"offline installers" means offline installers. They are self-contained executables (sometimes with extra bin files). They can be downloaded from the website through your browser, but they can also be downloaded through Galaxy from the "backups and extras" section.

There is literally nothing in that post to suggest that the offline installers differ depending on the method used to download them. I have no idea where you're getting that idea from.

The post you have linked to by the blue, does not mean what you think it does, you have misread it and the blue wasn't being clear enough.

At a guess, I presume you are thinking the 'GOG GALAXY updates are applied automatically by the developers' applies to all downloads via Galaxy, when it doesn't. That is only referring to the Galaxy installing package created by Developers, from which GOG eventually create the Offline Installers, that you download via your browser or that Galaxy option.

GOG would not be making two variants when essentially they do the same thing, if just for storage wastage alone.

O...k.

I did answer your question. When the installers via browser are older than the Galaxy ones, I use Galaxy to download the installers. Just as I used the old GOG downloader to download the files. GOG forgetting to update the installers on the website is a problem with GOG being GOG and not exactly with Galaxy. It's just them being as sloppy as they always were.

Browsers are horrible when it comes to downloading multiple, huge files. That's why I used the downloader many years ago and that's why I use Galaxy now.

And that's exactly what I want. To download files.

To me it doesn't feel like an afterthought. To me, Galaxy feels like a browser. Start it, go to your library, download. Couldn't be any simpler and it's quite consistent.

Did it? I mean, yeah, of course, it did. But that's because you needed your browser to browse through your library and click that download button. And I bet your browser took just as much screen space as Galaxy does now. Besides... Click download, minimize Galaxy, done. Just as you did with the downloader (or are you really watching those numbers going up?).

I used Galaxy on a 12 years old PC. My hard drive was slow like... well, like a 12 years old hard drive. My CPU definitely wasn't as fast as it was when it was new. Can I blame Galaxy for this? Nope... This was me, riding my old friend to death. Sure, the old GOG downloader was faster. But my hardware was about 6 years fresher back then, too.

Galaxy is running fine on my new PC. Sure, not as fast as the old downloader. But that's expectable, since Galaxy is browser and downloader combined.

I guess that isn't within their budget. And seeing how slow they're developing Galaxy, the development of a light version would probably mean that they'd stop updating anything for at least two years xP

Galaxy was GOG's biggest mistake. A mistake they're still not willing to admit. But if there's one thing that Galaxy does well, it's downloading your files. Everything else ("accidental" DRM, installers not being updated, no roll back feature/access to older installers with offline installers, ..., ..., ...) is just GOG being GOG. They never really were the most professional guys out there. It was kinda likeable when they still were the niche store Good Old Games. It became embarrassing when they tried (and failed) to become the next big player alongside Steam. Galaxy is still a pretty basic client, looking bigger than it is. But it does download your offline installers ;)

You can download your offline installers via the Galaxy api, not just the Galaxy bundled ones?

If so, maybe its time I invested more time looking into that, because the api the browser uses seems to get more dilapidated by the week.

You have a strange definition of simpler.
Look at how you have to get to the offline installer files and what displays when you are downloading. Certainly nothing about it is front and center and pride of place.

I bought a game at GOG with my browser, went to my library and clicked on the option to download via the old GOG Downloader. Once I had queued up all I needed to, I could close my browser, or because the GOG Downloader was light on resources, I could keep browsing the web.

Have a think about all the steps you need to go through after buying a game at GOG.
Of course you could buy your game through Galaxy, but we won't go there. :P

All about need, and just a file downloader doesn't need to be like that.

We are talking Lite, which shouldn't even take a week to code, especially as they already had the bones of a downloader with the GOG Downloader, or even Galaxy with all the unnecessary stuff removed and normal GUI browsing rather than using something like an embedded browser.

Galaxy is slow to develop as is, because it even includes your kitchen sink. Something that just focused on downloading would be far simpler to develop, even from scratch.

Other folk here have created downloaders at one remove, and I have created GUI at yet another remove for a couple of those projects. We have certainly put a lot of time and effort in, and all for nothing according to you and your view of Galaxy being no different to the GOG Downloader when it comes to all the aspects of downloading our game files.

I'm not against Galaxy, I just don't like using it myself, find it quite onerous, such that I was willing to be part of coding an alternative. I would never have bothered if they had just updated the GOG Downloader to what was required.

Hello,

I use a download software and it's pretty convenient.
It integrates perfectly with all browsers, you designate a list of files to download, you can choose the download time.
It is possible to prioritize files, limit the bandwidth resources used and even shut down the PC automatically at the end.

I use IDM with a lifetime license, there are others and some are free.
As a user for years, I can tell you that it works very well and you are not dependent on Galaxy.

If one day GoG imposes Galaxy, of course, it will be another story.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Have you used IDM recently, queuing up several 4 GB BIN files?

I ask this, because I have used FDM 5, a free third party downloader, and it used to work great, but GOG now reputedly have a time limit on inactive links ... something like 10 minutes. After that, any links that were added will die, and if the current download loses its connection momentarily, that links dies also.

EDIT
For FDM5 to continue, you have to remove the links and then re-add them.

P.S. But maybe IDM is better at getting the real links in the first place, only doing so on-the-fly. FDM5 intercepts instead.

Hello Timboli,

I don't know what you're calling recently, but no I haven't any problems.
Some time ago, the next morning my PC was stopped, without the download queue being complete.
I restarted IDM and it finished the previous day's download completely without any problem.

I will create a download list now and start the download tomorrow.
I will inform you as soon as possible.

Hello Timboli,

I started the download queue this morning, without any problem.

The game is Dying Light, so it's a lot of volume with a lot of bin files.

The problem for some, just an idea, is not the validity of the download address, but the time it takes to download.

Since I have a fiber optic connection, downloads are more stable and faster.
Before (6 months), with a very average ADSL connection, I had indeed some stability issues especially with big files, but never on GoG.

If I remember correctly, I had a problem with invalid links on GoG,
once and a long time ago.
They gave me a new link and it was fixed.

Hope this help

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

I'm not entirely sure that you gave a full answer, because yes it is about the time it takes.

Lets say you have 10 files to download (one EXE and nine BIN files). You add (queue) them all to IDM one after the other, then start downloading. If they all download within the limit GOG has set (i.e. 10 minutes) then that is as expected.

However, if you only download a few before that limit occurs, then the very next file and any after will fail, and you need to get the links again. The same if you have a web connection issue after that limit and the current download stops, and won't restart again until you get a fresh link for it, and you need to tell IDM to resume using the new (refreshed) link.

So did you download well beyond the supposed 10 minute limit. In other words did any queued downloads start after that limit?

If so, then IDM must be grabbing the true download link on-the-fly, unlike FDM 5 which grabs it when each download is added, and they eventually time out when inactive.

I guess you could also maybe get around the limit by downloading multiple files at the same time. I'm not a simultaneous file downloader, as I prefer to get what I can while I can and don't like taking up too much bandwidth.

The lgogdownloader is the best option for downloading games from your collection. You can find it on github.

You need to use Linux to use this thing. Either run it in a virtual machine or from a USB key. It might take you moment to learn it, but once you do you can create a script to download all your games. Thank you gog for making the gog client open sauce.