Yep Galaxy 2 is a bloody mess
galaxy (final version) is MUCH better the early versions were real janky

It was the perfect download companion for the movies here on gog
Rest in RIP GOG Downloader

Well at least everyone has GogRepo, and adalia is still going strong as ever.

Also an aside: Nice avatar...reminds me of this YTer named Styx. :)

Honestly I stopped using the Downloaded years ago, I didn't even knew it was still working. Honestly having a company keeping running an outdated, no longer supported software, along with it's outdated API for 6+ years is already very long so I don't think you can really blame Gog for wanting to get rid of it.

That being said, as other have asked in this thread, It would really be great if Gog improved the downloader part of Galaxy, currently it's very lacking, I could understand that when it was an early beta, but not anymore, especially if it's now the only official tool to download offline installer.

I liked the GOG Downloader, but I guess web browsers download the games just fine at this point.

I guess that's one way how to please evil ovelords after the new refund policy. Good to know about the python tool someone mentioned earlier. Hopefully that one will survive whimsical future.

How much manpower did that really take? What you are really getting at is the issue of resource allocation. While I suspect you and I will not agree on Galaxy (I think WAY too much resources have been going towards it), we can look at non-Galaxy stuff. Do you honestly believe it is better for staff to do things like ruin the front page design, remove GOGmixes, implement profiles with "everything public" as default? (Ok this last one is related to Galaxy).

The front page is a great example of the disconnect between you/design type folks versus the dedicated end user. It's as though you'd rather have a new version, even if it was literally not usable by many of the existing users. "Old = BAD! Obsolete!! I'm a software developer"...ok champ, but when the new version does not work the way that users are used to, maybe old isn't so bad after all, and users affected are right to feel aggravated/confused.

Short of another user's suggestion to make a Galaxy-lite that would essentially be Downloader just under a different name, I don't trust the mainline Galaxy brand as it is right now. You can tell me it downloads offline installers all day...but I feel there have been too many shady events around it to believe it is best for DRM-free gaming long-term. Getting rid of Downloader is not the only one of said events.

Ultimately I am here for DRM-free gaming, not for the Galaxy client brand. I think it is sad that GOG's weird, inexplicable decisions to favor Galaxy are driving some loyal customers away and making them into DRM-free refugees wandering from smaller store to smaller store. So add that to the list GOG could have done instead of removing Downloader: improve communication with users.

Well seeing as it's not run by GOG or under gog's control(afaik) it should stay safe for the foreseeable future.

(Also if anyone needs the list of suggestion I linked most of them in Post 130)
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Trust has to be EARNED, I agree, but if one doesn't ever give anyone trust to see what they do with it or takes away trust faster than they dish it out it makes it hard for some things/groups/people to build said trust.

Also not all change is good, but not all change is bad either. :)

Thing is, no one is forcing anyone away in such cases as much as people's moral choices/stances/how they choose to respond to such.....everyone is free to try taking what GOG offers(GOG isn't saying "you can't have this/that at all" essentially...people choose to part ways/avoid it in full or in part) if they want.
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(I GET the frustration had by some, though, and am not entirely unsympathetic...in case anyone reading this gets such vibes from reading it)

Two features for downloading offline installers with Galaxy would make me jizz in my pants:

1. Similar ability to mass-download your game installers, like with gogrepo. (and it would similarly get rid of old obsolete files yadda yadda, just like gogrepo).

2. Optional p2p protocol to download your games with your games. This would probably improve the download speeds for many people, and also take burden off of GOG download servers, if lots of people really would mass-download their games.

Some other sites are already using such p2p, e.g. HumbleBundle at least used to let you download your game installers optionally with a bittorrent client. Even the car navigator on my phone (MapFactor) has the option to download offline maps (which can be several gigabytes in size) with p2p using the phone, or alternatively direct downloads in case you don't want to use the p2p protocol.

Then again, maybe GOG feels it is enough we can download the installers at all...

Still the best way to download GOG bundles for most people. I use gogrepo.py, but that's beyond the reach of most people. Galaxy 2 is even a step back from Galaxy 1 in trying to use it to download archival bundles.

Can GOG contribute to gogrepo at least a ltitle bit? Maybe help so it consistently can deal with the CAPCHA issues it runs into for logins? And fix your categorizations so I don't, say, have jump through weird hoops to stop it from downloading 2 copies of The Witcher 3 because of the way it's actually 2 products on GOG? Or language categorization for the extras so I don't get many gigabytes of various language packs?

The site overall needs that new catalog/database update -- with collectors editions, base editions, upgrades not cross-marking when owned and whatnot (and tags). People have complained about that (rightly!) since the start. Fix that while I'm on the topic, please?

Exactly! Looks like it wasn't deemed to be newsworthy enough to be labelled as such and so was put as a normal post that could easily be missed. I actually could and probably would have missed it, if it hadn't been for 1) me having learned the hard way in making sure to check daily in case a game gets pulled out from the store without much notice, and 2) that it was on the fist page given the amount of replies.

Am not a too happy piglet at the thought of that near escape after the17th: trying to -of course unsuccessfully- figure out why all of a sudden that downloader no longer worked and links had disappeared.

If my mind was any more twisted than it already is, I'd end-up thinking that this was deliberately posted as a non-news...

Before Galaxy it was a must have application I still have somewhere the Gog Downloader installer, and I understand that is "obsolete" somehow... But in my personal situation I have some concerns and thoughts.

As Linux user most of the time, I'm losing direct contact with Gog because use web browser again to make any download is a get back. I've noticed that since downloading many GB of data gets a huge pain, needing to much time even, because some files where downloaded just fine but others at kb/s (for whatever the reason). Even patiently downloading one by one.

That centres my attention and time on downloads and not on Gog itself, so less time to look makes me: log in > download > log out, without even take a look to the store or community properly.
I know there are alternatives on Linux for donwloads, and I did not use them yet, but use the web browser again is a pain.

I liked Galaxy, it's useful to keep close contact and I've been using it for download off-line installers as well, I have installed Galaxy 2.0 in other computer but now I rarely use Windows, so like I said before, I'm losing contact with Gog because Galaxy makes me feel using the web browser like a little annoying thing (playing on Linux demands off-line installers right now for me).
I use Lutris to install and launch games, not download them, and I'm reticent to use Gog API trough any third applications.

Now I've been thinking to install on virtual machine Galaxy only for downloads, and that is annoying over a pain.

If they did it for that'd reason it'd be like the town planners(and also the galactic highway planners) in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy....where they both filed news of such being done, but put it in some out of the way place where no one would be as likely to see it. o.0

I know this - it is just that GOG really tried to go the extra mile to make us at least feel as being not just customers. Such decisions definitely - at least for me - are neglecting such efforts.

I came home yesterday after a long and exhausting day of work and this is what I read so yes, my first reaction was ranting (and I agree, sometimes it's better to bot write immediately). So yes, some of my words I wrote yesterday might have been a little harsh - though I am still unhappy that GOG downloader's time is now almost over. To make it perfectly clear: it was never my intention to not help the community anymore - the community did not do anything to me. This was all about the fact that in the past I tried as well helping GOG (telling them about bugs, offering language specific versions ect.) whenever they needed me and at this moment my desire to do so has sunklen to zero. Then again, whenever I am able to help I tend to do so, it#s my character and I probably won't be able to change this. So no need to worry.

Yes, I don't like change and maybe that is the main reason why this change is hitting me so much ... I also don't like making things ore complicated and archiving my games even with Galaxy will get more complicated now. What I wrote however is correct:. The user said that that he is using lgogdownloader and afaik this is a Python based script which is not really easy to work with ... at least not as easy as the one click download GOG downloader offered. So since he was telling me that there's no problem because this script exists I replied that this imo is not a really good and especially easy alternative.

I basically have the same answer to this as I had in the first line. I know that they are not family and I know they are not true friends (though I consider some of them working there to be my friends) but since GOG always tried to give the customer the feeling to be their friend it hurts when reality hits back. Maybe a bit more explanation about the why and that they already were able to see that the numbers still using it are very low, would have softened the blow but GOG and communication ...

I have to confess that this was pure speculation on my part which I normally try to avoid but I fear that those colors might only be the tip of the iceberg ... maybe it IS just a bit of different colors on the same pages and some colors won't hurt anybody ... but I fear that these changes might go deeper. So since these are just assumptions based on only a gut feeling, maybe you should disregard them ... for now.

That would sum it up. Stealth tactics are often good and required for games, but do rarely bod well in real life, certainly not for stuff like this anyway, not for me.