Well I guess having grown up with Game Launchers, that were called that, long before clients like Steam and Galaxy came along, that's what that term (description or title) means to me.

Even though Galaxy etc launch games, calling them a Game Launcher is not the correct name for them. They are a Game Client (for want of a better word), that downloads games and updates, has access to a Store and a game library, does multiplayer stuff, is a frontend for DRM, links to friends and a whole lot more. My view, is that we should call things by their right name.

Something, something backalley deals.

I just use Galaxy. The integration crashes certainly are a bit annoying but other than that, it's literally everything I could want in the GOG client. Unless it's a game that requires more system resources, I just use Galaxy exclusively because it's simple.

I don't use any launcher. I mainly buy from GOG, itch.io, Humble Bundle DRM-FREE, GameJolt and direct from devs that provide DRM-FREE copies of their games. I also use Stadia but I use credits from Google Rewards to buy stuff there which is not real $ so I don't count them as part of my collection.

Thanks for the links! I already use lgogdownloader and would not have bought more than a few games on GOG without it. But I did not know about the hb and itch.io downloader.

The itch.io downloader has been developed by BetaRays specifically for the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality, so you could not have learned about it before that ;)

If you don't want to use Galaxy to download your GOG games, then things are getting better all the time with gogcli.exe, especially if you are a Windows user right now, due to a GUI.

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/gogcli_gog_client

Magnitus, with some GUI provision from me, along with advice from a few others, has already provided a reasonable replacement. It's not a full replacement for all the features of the old GOG Downloader, but maybe that's a good thing according to some ... and we have other great features included.

If you are willing to try it, both Magnitus and I would appreciate some feedback for our good work. :)

lgogdownloader is the sole thing that makes GOG bearable for a Linux gamer.

It's really quite good, thanks Sude!