You can find details about my program here - https://www.gog.com/forum/general/gogplus_download_checker

LET GOG KNOW HOW YOU FEEL BY VOTING
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/keep_the_gog_downloader_and_keep_it_up_to_date

We are up to 1341 votes now.

They did? Damn- I guess I can stop waiting for the next season then ;)

But it is interesting. You are registered since 2008, in a time when afaik GOG Downloader was still a thing officially. Well, some always preferred the browser download I guess.

You shouldn't trust that info cause I did not join in 2013.
I guess, when you sign up with email account, authenticator take some date from it instead.

Well, now you know why GOG is dead (see my tagline).

On a more serious note, GOG does really try to push hard as it can to let people forget about the offline installers and be like Steam (and afterwards, the most recent revision was to copy Netflix, but just for games; remember anyone GOG did load videos on mouse hovering over game tiles in the shop?).

If you have any time invested into the more inner structure of the shop (JSON stuff etc) and know some Steam API, these things here look VERY familar, but very messy and a piled up heap of inconsistencies and exceptions, countless ones one atop another ones.

GOG will sit this out, as countless other things it has decided not fitting into its business plan (and is waiting for a disgruntled user doing a replacement -- oh wait, so there is no need to revive a Galaxy competition in its own house).

This bit was unneeded.

Including yourself, correct?

Whose "right" thing?

I refer you to the 2nd bit I replied to where you said it's a two way street.

I already said why.

Besides those reasons I also am interested to see where all this posting(by all sides) and the movement being pushed for leads.

(Also I have somewhat moderate OCD, and as such will often post to threads I have interest in for a very long time)

Also unneeded and a low blow, imo.

(Also unoriginal.....people have been using it to try and easily discredit what I say for years)

Only reason browser download became annoying is the huge file sizes of newer games. If you mostly only play the old or indie stuff, you wouldn't notice or care.

Or if people had a good DL speed and browser.

Heck, even with big files and my crappy chrome fork browser I just usually set the files to DL, and then use the net to watch videos or read articles while I wait

(To all: I don't say this to make light of or marginalize the issues of anyone[especially those who actually needed GOG DLer], btw....I know some have limited DL caps and slow speeds or sh*tty connections)

I agree, although thankfully there are still options. While the GOG Downloader was much better things like XDM (https://sourceforge.net/projects/xdman/ searched for several days to find something decent and not full of spyware/adware) make it doable rather than standard browsing downloads. If I had to do it that way alone, it wouldn't work for me at all except for games that are older/much smaller. But then again, even games from the late 90's can be a couple of gigs. Which depending on your bandwidth can nuke it for some time. And some of us can't afford to do that.

It still boggles my mind why GOG dropped it. It doesn't seem like it would be that hard to keep going. Or at the very least update it so it didn't need special links to work. We would get the best of both worlds then. They get rid of the links and infrastructure and we get a nice download method.

It did not need special links but obviously it still did need some backend. When the GOG Downloader was abandoned first the GOG downloader links were removed from the site but if you used adalia fundamentals script downloading still worked (because the script made its own GOG downloader links). After one or two days those links did not work anymore so GOG must have turned off some sort of main switch then and whatever it is that was running up until this time is probabply the thing that requires so much support, energy and manpower that it makes it worth to offend 1000+ customers. And before it will be shouted at me again ... yes, I know that 1000+ customers is not that much, I just wanted to state the facts, nothing more.

I think whatever minor amount of work it took to keep it an option and prevent security vulnerabilities was probably deemed not worth it considering identical functionality was added to Galaxy, i.e. downloading offline installers. The amount of people who want a download app but refuse to use Galaxy for even just that purpose is probably infinitesimally small, right or wrong. Probably a 1,000 people or so out of millions, for example. ;)

Add to this that even though those people (myself included) might feel offended or better, they get angry or disappointed ... for even a smaller fraction it means that they won't buy anymore. Probably no need for GOG to keep everybody completely happy as long as they are still buying.

What I am curious about is how many of them only got involved(voting/etc) because the issue was dear to them/impacted them personally.

I ask as there have been issues(some impacting many more people and in worse ways) over the years(and even recently with the forced galaxy upgrades) that have been brought up, yet not many(afaik) seem to show support for many issues that don't impact them personally.

Yes, I know...different priorities....still, one would think more would stand in support of more issues here, and not just those that impact them personally(standing in solidarity might also help improve the odds of each issue being addressed).

Indeed. Who cares if they are angry as long as they keep buying. Now if we all left or didn't buy again, that's different. As I said, if I hadn't found the downloader I am using now, I might have left and not come back. It wouldn't have been a point for me staying, except for smaller games. I know one can't keep everyone happy, it just seems that a simple tweak to the downloader could have kept it going without any backend needed other than what is available now for everything else. Yes it would seem they didn't think it was worth it, disappointing to be sure. I'm just glad I found something that works ok.

Oh I forgot to mention in the earlier post, you need to add .bin to the watched file types so it will auto trigger XDM to "take over" from the browser when that file type comes up to download. Otherwise you can do it manually, but the name gets changed and you need to rename it yourself.

gogdownloader was very handy. at least i could be sure the GB download wouldnt crash and die unlike using browser on random occasions. Is galaxy and browser the only options to download the installers now? (if you use galaxy to download installer, do you need it for installer to install the game)

A more pertinent question would be: "Why push Galaxy to the point of removing or obscuring alternative download methods?"

And the answer is: multiplayer.

Galaxy can only succeed as a multiplayer client if lots of people use it. Then anyone looking for other players for game X is more likely to find them, which encourages them to use it more/recommend it to friends/etc creating a virtuous circle. Without enough "bums on seats", Galaxy multiplayer risks becoming a comparative desert with perhaps only a few of the most popular MP games attracting sufficient players.

Being DRM-free clearly helped GOG in its initial phase and still is a (nearly) Unique Selling Point along with making previously unavailable golden oldies purchasable. But these aren't enough to compete (in most gamers' eyes) with the multiplayer, modding, overlays, streaming and other options Valve have been including - and GOG can't throw money away on freebies in the way Epic/EA/Ubisoft could.

So Galaxy is now their Great White Hope and our Pain in the Arse... ;)
The type of games you play can provide an indication of your personality and the time/frequency of play can provide lifestyle data such as marital/family status, social life and income level. "Social" games can be mined to provide further details of friends and family.

Worst case, gaming data is almost certainly going to be used by current/future employers and people "faking a sick day" in order to play a new release could find it resulting in disciplinary action in the same way that a careless social media post ("Hey I'm taking a sickie!") could. Credit-worthiness is another area likely to take increasing account of gaming activity (probably along the lines of "too much games" = "bad").

The key thing here is that the entities selling and buying data on you aren't doing so for your benefit, but because they can extract benefit from you. This is clearly obvious with targeted advertising that aims to get you to purchase (or purchase at a higher price) but behavioural profiling has a hidden side also.