Valid points. I'm not saying anyone shouldn't use a downloader if they like. I was just answering the OPs question for myself.

I'm not bothered, I'm used to the downvotes being pretty much meaningless here. Hell, they would meaningless even if the system wasn't being abused since forever. I just sometimes find it particularly bizarre which posts the trolls choose to downvote. I mean, really, tell me that the idea of someone being triggered simply by someone else saying "no thanks, I don't need a downloader" isn't hilarious.

Do as you like. I personally don't install any launchers on my computers. I just want the game binary and manual installs.

My GUI for gogrepo.py makes it one click downloading, and further one-clicking to queue up other games.

And while my GUI for gogcli.exe isn't currently one click, it is one click to add a game (all files) to the download list and another click to select all and then one final third click to download all. I could make it all one click, like I did with gogrepo.py, or reduce it to two clicks, but what's a couple of extra clicks. I may yet enable that in an update though, as I have partially done the code for it.

And it's not 3 clicks per game either, it is one click per game plus two clicks. So 5 games would be 7 clicks total, 10 games 12. That's all files for those games, including extras and patches and DLC ... and alternate OS files.

EDIT - Actually it is 3 extra clicks total with multiple games, not 2. One click per game to add to a combined download list and one click to open the download window ... then you have the extra two clicks. So 5 games would be 8 clicks and 10 games 13.

Even the old GOG Downloader, bless its soul, didn't do so few clicks if you had extras or patches or DLC to download.

And that includes automated MD5 and ZIP file checking with my GOGcli GUI, which run's the gogcli.exe program by Magnitus.

To use overtly blunt phrasing, you'd be surprised how many people are still butthurt GOG canned the downloader, even though there's at least 5 alternatives to hand.

A downloader does not have to be a games launcher ;)

Actually, I would not have adopted my current downloader if it came bundled with some kind of games launcher. Or with a games installer. Or anything else not related to the simple task of downloading the DRM-free installers for my GOG.com games.

There is something to be said about the fact that GOG doesn't have an official api specification and that the downloaders are unofficial though.

That means that any time in the future, GOG can change their api in a backward-incompatible manner, break all the existing downloaders and wash their hands clean of any responsibility.

With an official downloader, they'd have obligations to maintain it and/or with an official api, they'd have obligations to maintain backward-compatibiity in their api which in turn would ensure that unofficial clients that conform to the api specification would not break.

The unofficial downloaders are really as unofficial as you can be. They could break anytime without notice if GOG changes something.

I would rather see an organized audit of a current downloader or a cli downloader and a gui downloader separately. It all sounds nice with just 3 clicks or whatever, but infact security and audits should be of more importance at this point

Some newer projects like mine are not really audited due to their newness and relatively low usage, but if you take some of the older downloaders out there that have been used by a hundred people or more, many pairs of eyes have looked at them which constitutes an audit of sorts that most popular open-source projects are subjected to.

Its very doubtful that a backdoor could be introduced in a project like lgogdownloader (with 400+ stars) at this point without people openly screaming about it.

Galaxy already downloads the offline installers, people just think it's too "heavy" a program from what I've gathered. GOG having a simple or "lite" version of Galaxy is probably the thing to campaign for, rather than a whole other app.

There used to be GOG downloader, but they deemed that one obsolete, remember? Clearly the focus is not on a "lite" tool. So it's up to the community to offer alternatives to Galaxy.
For example, I would not install Galaxy just to download the offline installers, especially considering its behavior.

I'd be interested in seeing a lightweight tool that would allow me to more easily back up my installers. I don't really mind Galaxy, but it has way more than I really want from this. I don't need store integration, a friends list, achievements, or anything like that; though I do like how it lets you link games bought on steam and whatnot. Mostly though, I'd check out a simple method of downloading the offline installers, might even get rid of Galaxy if that was the case.

You really should take a look at Kalanyr's gogrepoc. its command line but very light weight. A breeze to install, you just download python 2.7 win installer msi. the only trick is getting windows to recognize the 'pip' python command in cmd. this is solved easily with the command setx PATH "%PATH%;C:\Python27\Scripts"
once you get pip as a cmd PATH then you install the html5lib. then its just a couple basic commands and it tracks your games and updates and can download all or a single title, backup, copy, and create hashes and verify the downloads of everything. has a good log file too

I have this idea, make both the social aspects and the shopping part of Galaxy optional downloadable content. Make the achievements another DLC as well, for a total of three. :-) Many people would be happy with the base program I guess.

What behavior?

An example
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/how_to_hide_or_remove_offline_installed_games_from_galaxy/page1
Or it could very well be attributed to the offline installers and how they are built (with Galaxy integration in mind).
At any rate, I have no use for Galaxy in an offline environment.