Is anyone else having issues with downloads? they're all only downloading at less than one megabyte per second ( < 1 MB/sec )?

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

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

Thanks but what does that even mean? Sounds like we're basically screwed?

Correct.

You may be, but I am getting around 20 Mbytes/sec download speed right now (downloading one offline installer file; downloading multiple at the same time does not seem to improve the total download speed for me, like it does for some).

That download speed is not great, but I consider it sufficient. My theoretical max download speed would be around 75MBytes/sec (= 600 Mbits/sec).

Why some/many get poor web browser download speeds from GOG and whether they can fix it (workaround) themselves somehow is a bit unclear. Possible fixes that may or may not work or apply to you:

1. Using the Galaxy client to download the offline installers (they are under Extras). For some this improves offline installer download speeds, it does that for me too the last time I tried (I think I got up to 70MBytes/sec download speeds with Galaxy for offline installers).

2. Tricking your browser to use another Fastly download server that is known to give better speeds, by the use of the "hosts" file in your PC. However, for some this doesn't seem to have worked and they still get poor download speeds even if they switch to another download server that is giving better download speeds for others, but the trick itself seems to work, I have switched to some other Fastly servers that people have complained about, and got considerably worse download speeds on them.

3. Whine million times to GOG support, maybe they'll ask Fastly "Yo, wassup? U making our cuztimerz ängry, yo yo yo?" (I think that is how they talk in Warsaw because they appear to be pretty cool and hip people overall).

BTW, if GOG support replies back to you "Just use Galaxy" as the fix, you can reply with:

"But I am a Linux user and you don't provide a Galaxy client for Linux."

That works, every time, 8 times out of 10.

Screwed in a sense, but you can do a few things to improve the situation.

Galaxy might be faster downloading Offline Installers via their Extras section.
In fact any downloading program that will work for you that uses multiple threads.
I personally use Free Download Manager 5.

The limit appears to be for a single thread, so multiple threads increase the speed.

And things tend to be much worse during big sales at GOG.

Not on all download servers. E.g. the one I use, yesterday I got around 20 MBytes/sec total speed, no matter whether I downloaded one or two files at the same time.

On some other server I did get around 4-5 MBytes/sec per file, so downloading two files at the same time would double the total download speed.

It is a bit odd the different servers behave differently, as if the limits are different. In some cases I presume there is no actual limitation but the server may be just overburdened. And in some cases it may be something at the users end, or their ISP...

Have you tried a program like Free Download Manager 5?
As we are talking about multiple threads for the same file, not two files simultaneously.

The main issue I think for some of us, is that the servers near us don't host any GOG data, so it has to come from a long way away over many connections. That probably explains why some folk like yourself have no issue, if GOG data is hosted on a server much closer to you.

I wish GOG would be transparent for once about all this. I perfectly understand why GOG aren't transparent about many other things, but this is on a different level of importance.

I did some backup installer download testing with another ISP recently. I got acceptable download speeds from the same Fastly server that was very slow on my other ISP.

My theory for why it's slow for some and not others is that Fastly is throttling download speeds from ISPs using CGNAT. CGNAT makes it look like a huge block of customers are coming from the same IP address, which creates issues when services throttle or ban based on IP address.

Does it matter whether you are downloading the same file (in two threads), or two different files, from the same server?

I could try that manager but somehow I don't believe it would have allowed me to download faster than 20 MBytes/sec. Could be, but I don't think it is the biggest factor. OFG tested his close(?) Fastly server in US and got around 4MBytes/sec per file, and when I connected to that same server all the way from here, I also got similar results.

I also tried a couple of Fastly servers elsewhere in Europe that I saw someone complaining, and got quite low download speeds there, like under 1 MBytes/sec. It might also be they are just as puzzled as we are, and Fastly is not giving them a straight answer, either because they don't know the reason exactly either, or don't want to admit it.

That sounds feasible, at least for the extreme cases like under 1MBytes/sec.

However, I did some testing before by trying some Fastly server that was reported as slow, and I also got slow download speeds even though I shouldn't have such an issue of having a shared public IP address (I can forward ports etc. just fine on my router, or set it to bridged mode).

Yes there also seems to be general load issues, especially during sales. I do think CGNAT may be the problem for the extremely slow and wildly varying speeds some people are getting though, especially after seeing how many ISPs around the world are using it now. Starlink, Comcast, BT, Telstra for example.

When I downloaded the Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty offline installer (most recent 2.2), it downloaded at 15-20MB/sec for each file, and I downloaded 3-4 at once. But otherwise, everything else seems to be around 1MB/sec max. Doesn't matter if downloading one file or ten. Each file would max out at 1MB/sec.

My internet is 1Gbps, and Steam maxes out my download speed no problem.

I decided to try my VPN, it's limited to 12MB/sec, it managed to max out that 12 MB/sec for some reason. So it must be tied to IP or internet provider somehow.

EDIT: I'm trying this now and only getting about 10-13 MB/sec. Plus the downside is it only can download one game at a time.

I used to be able to download multiple files with the regular download installers at a solid 20MB/sec minimum for each file through a web browser. I've tried other computers and web browsers with the same result. I updated the hosts file and it didn't matter.

I've found galaxy to be the only way I can download offline installers in a timely manner.

I've had slow DL speeds happen to me on occasion. But it's usually so random and so rare that I just assumed just some random glitch between my system and GOG's networks.