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General discussionWe say goodbye to GOG Downloader(886 posts)(886 posts)
(886 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted April 28, 2021
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albinistic: Hello, I am pretty new and am wondering what was the GOG downloader and what is the difference between the browser and gog downloader if someone does not mind explaining it to me.
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toxicTom: Short answer: Browsers still exist. GOGDownloader doesn't.

Long answer:

GOGDownloader was a convenient way to download you offline backup installers, when they were still the only way to install GOG games. Then came Galaxy. Then came Galaxy 2 and the APIs to download the offline installers changed too much to keep the Downloader alive.

Problem is, it's way harder to download the offline installers through Galaxy and keep track of updates. Scripts like gogrepy.py do that nowadays way better. Which is hard for people who simply want a slim, fuzz-free tool to keep their library up-to-date.
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Thorfinn: Wow. I hadn't even noticed the reply. Sorry if you thought I was ignoring you. For a year. ;)

What the downloader did was only download the things that actually changed. If there was something new in the goodies, it skipped all the stuff you already had. Instead of downloading all the 4GB .bins, it would run the CRC if you already had the file to make sure it wasn't corrupted somehow.

Now if it says it's been updated, and I can't figure out what, I just download everything and do a full check with FreeFileSync, then delete it from the downloads directory.
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paladin181: Gogrepo is a great alternative if you are willing to get it working. It does checks and only downloads new/changed files once you have it set up.
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albinistic: Hello, I am pretty new and am wondering what was the GOG downloader and what is the difference between the browser and gog downloader if someone does not mind explaining it to me.
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paladin181: Gog downloader was the client for downloading before galaxy and featured a lightweight method to queue downloads and only download files needed to bring an entry up-to-date.
Oh, got it okay. Thank you for the explanation.
Posted April 28, 2021
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albinistic: Hello, I am pretty new and am wondering what was the GOG downloader and what is the difference between the browser and gog downloader if someone does not mind explaining it to me.
GoG downloader was just a no bloat downloader to download the installer files and/or the extras. The reason people lament it's passing is simply downloading via the web browser just plain sucks.

For example, if you wanted to download a game you clicked one link and it opened it up in GoG downloader and downloaded the WHOLE game into a subdirectory for you. Maybe you click a second link for the extras to download, and it will queue it up for you to download after the main game finishes. You can queue several games to download if you bought a few during a sale and it really was very convenient. You could limit bandwidth if you needed to, you could stop and resume with no issues. Once queued up you games/patches will download, you can close your browser or do other things in your browser and not worry about the downloads.

Now compare that to the website. Sure you can still download the game, but it's a royal pain in the ass. If a game has 20 x 4GB pieces you have to click each one individually one at a time. If your download gets interrupted there is no resume (well at least not in my browser) so you have start over from the beginning again. No real bandwidth management since it's all up to the browser. Maybe a download manager would help but personally I don't like most of the download manager browser plugins for various reasons, so it is just a big pain in the ass to download. So you have to wait for these pieces to download one at a time, and if you have another batch of games/patches to download you have to go to each one and download each of their pieces one at a time till you finish. You can try to continue working in a new browser or new tab, but that is usually a bad idea, as I have had downloads just stop on me at like 97% done if I do anything kind of taxing in the browser and have to start from the beginning again for that piece.

So yeah not happy at all that GoG Downloader is gone. I know i can upgrade my current galaxy 1.x client to 2.x at anytime, and technically that can download the installer files automatically, but I really just don't want it because it's just too bloated a piece of software whose only use on my system is to be a GoG Downloader alternative. Seriously GoG Downloader was just over 2MB in size installed, not sure how big GoG Galaxy 2.0 is but 1.0 was a little under 400MB so 2.0 is probably around 1GB now or larger.
Posted April 28, 2021
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albinistic: Hello, I am pretty new and am wondering what was the GOG downloader and what is the difference between the browser and gog downloader if someone does not mind explaining it to me.
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LurkerLito: GoG downloader was just a no bloat downloader to download the installer files and/or the extras. The reason people lament it's passing is simply downloading via the web browser just plain sucks.

For example, if you wanted to download a game you clicked one link and it opened it up in GoG downloader and downloaded the WHOLE game into a subdirectory for you. Maybe you click a second link for the extras to download, and it will queue it up for you to download after the main game finishes. You can queue several games to download if you bought a few during a sale and it really was very convenient. You could limit bandwidth if you needed to, you could stop and resume with no issues. Once queued up you games/patches will download, you can close your browser or do other things in your browser and not worry about the downloads.

Now compare that to the website. Sure you can still download the game, but it's a royal pain in the ass. If a game has 20 x 4GB pieces you have to click each one individually one at a time. If your download gets interrupted there is no resume (well at least not in my browser) so you have start over from the beginning again. No real bandwidth management since it's all up to the browser. Maybe a download manager would help but personally I don't like most of the download manager browser plugins for various reasons, so it is just a big pain in the ass to download. So you have to wait for these pieces to download one at a time, and if you have another batch of games/patches to download you have to go to each one and download each of their pieces one at a time till you finish. You can try to continue working in a new browser or new tab, but that is usually a bad idea, as I have had downloads just stop on me at like 97% done if I do anything kind of taxing in the browser and have to start from the beginning again for that piece.

So yeah not happy at all that GoG Downloader is gone. I know i can upgrade my current galaxy 1.x client to 2.x at anytime, and technically that can download the installer files automatically, but I really just don't want it because it's just too bloated a piece of software whose only use on my system is to be a GoG Downloader alternative. Seriously GoG Downloader was just over 2MB in size installed, not sure how big GoG Galaxy 2.0 is but 1.0 was a little under 400MB so 2.0 is probably around 1GB now or larger.
Thank you for adding on and giving a further explanation about GOG downloader. I appreciate it!
Posted May 24, 2021
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Thorfinn: Wow. I hadn't even noticed the reply. Sorry if you thought I was ignoring you. For a year. ;)

What the downloader did was only download the things that actually changed. If there was something new in the goodies, it skipped all the stuff you already had. Instead of downloading all the 4GB .bins, it would run the CRC if you already had the file to make sure it wasn't corrupted somehow.

Now if it says it's been updated, and I can't figure out what, I just download everything and do a full check with FreeFileSync, then delete it from the downloads directory.
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paladin181: Gogrepo is a great alternative if you are willing to get it working. It does checks and only downloads new/changed files once you have it set up.
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albinistic: Hello, I am pretty new and am wondering what was the GOG downloader and what is the difference between the browser and gog downloader if someone does not mind explaining it to me.
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paladin181: Gog downloader was the client for downloading before galaxy and featured a lightweight method to queue downloads and only download files needed to bring an entry up-to-date.
Again, sorry for leaving this for so long. Life got in the way.

Thanks! I'll look into it.

[EDIT]
Surviving Mars is a great example. The changelog says Tito 1001551 is the most recent change. Yet there's a patch to update from that to 1001569, and evidently not a patch to update to 100589, which really is presumably the most recent, despite what the changelog says.

I don't really know what to do with that. Download everything, I guess.
[/EDIT]
Post edited May 24, 2021 by Thorfinn
Posted May 24, 2021
IF YOU WANT TO LET GOG KNOW HOW YOU FEEL, YOU STILL CAN BY VOTING.
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/keep_the_gog_downloader_and_keep_it_up_to_date

The wishlist is up to 2039 votes now. :)

Clearly people are still voting as it has now well and truly passed 2,000 votes since I last posted.

And while GOG are extremely unlikely to restore something like the GOG Downloader, the continued voting should give them cause for reflection ... and maybe that will result in something better or beneficial one day.

2039 (and rising) GOG customers are not happy that the old GOG Downloader has been removed.
Posted August 22, 2021
My ongoing problem through many years has been that my gog downloads randomly get interrupted if I try to download them via my browser. Only gog downloader used to prevent that problem. I had cast my vote in the wishlist long ago but still, it is not here. I hope it will make a comeback.
Post edited August 22, 2021 by Excolion
Posted August 22, 2021
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Excolion: My ongoing problem through many years has been that my gog downloads randomly get interrupted if I try to download them via my browser. Only gog downloader used to prevent that problem. I had cast my vote in the wishlist long ago but still, it is not here. I hope it will make a comeback.
Maybe try a download manger in your browser?

---

However, again just in general on this topic, I get some people here want to make Galaxy seem like the devil and it's a sin to use a client (which is ironic because the downloader was a client), but Galaxy works beyond well for downloading installers and quite frankly avoiding it is purely illogical at this point and one is making the experience worse for themselves for ideological reasons.

Just to share. What I do is make a "Downloaded" tag on my account (https://www.gog.com/account) and I use Galaxy to download the installers and all the goodies, which in Galaxy is set to back them up to an external drive. I then mark the game as downloaded. The purpose of the tag is so that whenever a game is updated I can very easily tell if I have a downloaded archive of the game already and know I need to back up this new version. I don't clear the blue dot until I have download the new version. In the off chance GOG misses a game I keep an eye on:

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/the_what_did_just_update_thread
AND
https://www.gogdb.org/changelog-ext

With the combination of that I am able to easily keep track of backups and Galaxy works great for this. You can disable every feature in Galaxy (achievements, cloud saves, auto-updates, etc.) and you use purely as a downloader for installers and play all your games without it. The only negative here is a slight increase in drive space.

But if someone is keen to make their experience worse by avoiding a fully functional pierce of software that is on them, not GOG, as GOG provides software to make the experience better for the end user.

The download is dead RIP, and wishing for this really OLD software to return is simply not going to happen, there may not even be a programmer at GOG that even worked on it. And if there is no documentation for the code then that is even worse. One would have better luck asking them to create a Galaxy LITE with only the installer download function, but even that would be a stretch. Just speaking as a programmer...
Post edited August 22, 2021 by user deleted
Posted August 23, 2021
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Excolion: My ongoing problem through many years has been that my gog downloads randomly get interrupted if I try to download them via my browser. Only gog downloader used to prevent that problem. I had cast my vote in the wishlist long ago but still, it is not here. I hope it will make a comeback.
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BKGaming: Maybe try a download manger in your browser?

---

However, again just in general on this topic, I get some people here want to make Galaxy seem like the devil and it's a sin to use a client (which is ironic because the downloader was a client), but Galaxy works beyond well for downloading installers and quite frankly avoiding it is purely illogical at this point and one is making the experience worse for themselves for ideological reasons.

Just to share. What I do is make a "Downloaded" tag on my account (https://www.gog.com/account) and I use Galaxy to download the installers and all the goodies, which in Galaxy is set to back them up to an external drive. I then mark the game as downloaded. The purpose of the tag is so that whenever a game is updated I can very easily tell if I have a downloaded archive of the game already and know I need to back up this new version. I don't clear the blue dot until I have download the new version. In the off chance GOG misses a game I keep an eye on:

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/the_what_did_just_update_thread
AND
https://www.gogdb.org/changelog-ext

With the combination of that I am able to easily keep track of backups and Galaxy works great for this. You can disable every feature in Galaxy (achievements, cloud saves, auto-updates, etc.) and you use purely as a downloader for installers and play all your games without it. The only negative here is a slight increase in drive space.

But if someone is keen to make their experience worse by avoiding a fully functional pierce of software that is on them, not GOG, as GOG provides software to make the experience better for the end user.

The download is dead RIP, and wishing for this really OLD software to return is simply not going to happen, there may not even be a programmer at GOG that even worked on it. And if there is no documentation for the code then that is even worse. One would have better luck asking them to create a Galaxy LITE with only the installer download function, but even that would be a stretch. Just speaking as a programmer...
There are still reasons to not use GOG Galaxy:
* GOG Galaxy needs a Windows or Mac OS machine, or something like WINE (and I don't know how well WINE works here).
* GOG needs an x86 CPU (I don't know if it has to be x86-64 or if it still supports 32-bit), or an emulation thereof. For example, running this on a Raspberry Pi would require emulation, and would likely be unacceptably slow when compared to something like a browser running without emulation. (Before you ask, games that run under DOSBox or that are basically ROMs packaged with emulators could be run with a native emulator with decent performance, provided the game can be downloaded and unpacked.)
* GOG Galaxy, being a GUI-based application, requires a GUI to be running, and I don't think it can be automated.
* There's also the possible issue that GOG Galaxy's system requirements might be higher than those of the game being played; in this case, using the client may not be an option even on Windows or Mac OS on some systems.

Something like gogrepo.py doesn't have the limitations I mention (though it does require Python 2, which is already past End of Life and may not be installed on new Linux installations).
Posted August 23, 2021
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dtgreene: Something like gogrepo.py doesn't have the limitations I mention (though it does require Python 2, which is already past End of Life and may not be installed on new Linux installations).
The gogrepo fork gogrepoc (by Kalanyr) runs perfectly fine with Python 3. It’s my tool of choice for regular automated updates of game library.
Posted August 23, 2021
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dtgreene: Something like gogrepo.py doesn't have the limitations I mention (though it does require Python 2, which is already past End of Life and may not be installed on new Linux installations).
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4-vektor: The gogrepo fork gogrepoc (by Kalanyr) runs perfectly fine with Python 3. It’s my tool of choice for regular automated updates of game library.
Even the last version of the original gogrepo.py works fine with Python 3.

Until gogcli.exe came along I was using the original gogrepo.py for ages, with Python 3.
Posted August 23, 2021
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No disrespect intended, but that is quite a sugar coating.

I don't have a problem with Galaxy existing or others using it, just so long as I don't have to.

I don't not use it for ideological reasons, but for reasons of practicality. It runs horrible on my downloading PC.

It is bloated and hogs resources. I know that for a fact, because I have tried it a few times and a few versions.

Many coders these days get away with poor coding, purely because powerful enough PCs can brute force things. You see that not only with Galaxy, but with GOG and other web pages in general, etc, etc. Galaxy if I remember correctly, is either built from web browser code etc or has it embedded.

I'm sure, that if you have a fairly powerful PC, then Galaxy will probably run reasonably well, but not all of us have that scenario, and many games don't require it. And I certainly don't require most of the features, which cause the bloat.

I'd be more than happy to try a Galaxy Lite variant ... if it was truly lite.

P.S. Any program can be called a client, but a game client that does much more than just downloading is an altogether different kind of client, and uses a lot more resources.
Post edited August 23, 2021 by Timboli
Posted August 23, 2021
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Wow. So you have to go into multiple games and edit tags, queue downloads, and then navigate back up to the level you can select another game and repeat the process to download your games. Do you realize how long that would take on a library with say.... 819 games? Nevermind checking update status and only downloading updated files. That would take months if I did nothing else from sunup to sun down, and I'd be constantly cycling through updating new games. Galaxy is piss poor for backing up your library. I like the client well enough, I use it.

" But if someone is keen to make their experience worse by avoiding a fully functional pierce of software that is on them, not GOG, as GOG provides software to make the experience better for the end user."

Don't go spreading your own misinformation about how great it is. It's not. It has a LOT of room for improvement, particularly on the game back-up front. It's not "a fully functional pierce[sic] of software." It's not AS janky and broken as some would make it seem, but it's still a pretty janky and broken client at times.
Post edited August 23, 2021 by paladin181
Posted August 23, 2021
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Timboli: I don't have a problem with Galaxy existing or others using it, just so long as I don't have to.
Fair enough, my post was not about telling people to use Galaxy if your happy with using the browser or third party tools, rather if you looking for a gog Downloader replacement this is the intended replacement.

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paladin181: Wow. So you have to go into multiple games and edit tags, queue downloads, and then navigate back up to the level you can select another game and repeat the process to download your games. Do you realize how long that would take on a library with say.... 812 games? Nevermind checking update status and only downloading updated files. That would take years if I did nothing else from sunup to sun down, and I'd be constantly cycling through updating new games. Galaxy is piss poor for backing up your library. I like the client well enough, I use it.
I have like 650+ games, it's really not that hard. I click the down arrow on the site, set the tag... and click download in galaxy. I've gotten most of my library done pretty quickly, I usually download like 5 -10 games a night.


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paladin181: Don't go spreading your own misinformation about how great it is. It's not. It has a LOT of room for improvement, particularly on the game back-up front. It's not "a fully functional pierce[sic] of software." It's not AS janky and broken as some would make it seem, but it's still a pretty janky and broken client at times.
Never said it was great or not without issues, rather I said it works great for the intended purposes of downloading installers. This no more complicated the the old gog Downloader use to be, but I agree there is plenty of room for improvements.
Post edited August 23, 2021 by user deleted
Posted August 23, 2021
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Just to refresh your memory. When GOG Downloader still existed you could simply cue the downloads you wanted from your library and the downloader would start and run in background without you even noticing it. So while it is still possible to do similar things with the browser or even Galaxy it is absolutely not the same experience - not in the slightest. I am using Galaxy to download my offline installers and to do so I mark the games in my library, open Galaxy, search for each game in Galaxy, click multiple times to go to extras where they stored the offline installers, download all my games and then I go to each directory and delete the Temp directory since those Galaxy devs aren't even capable to delete a Temp(!) directory after finishing the process ... sometthing a kid could program. Hard to compare this with what I did with GOG downloader ... but sure , it is "obsolete" - because GOG says so.
Post edited August 23, 2021 by MarkoH01
Posted August 23, 2021
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dtgreene: Something like gogrepo.py doesn't have the limitations I mention (though it does require Python 2, which is already past End of Life and may not be installed on new Linux installations).
Why gogrepo.py? Why not lgogdownloader? Does gogrepo.py actually do anything that lgogdownloader can't? I mean, Windows users still have something of an excuse, although some Windows users have gotten lgogdownloader to work as well.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionWe say goodbye to GOG Downloader(886 posts)(886 posts)
(886 posts)