When it comes to downloading and installing games from www.gog.com, what's the difference between Classic GOG.com and Galaxy GOG.com? Is one better than the other/

You can install a game directly through Galaxy, GOG's gaming client. You will need to install Galaxy first.

For some games, the offline installers come bundled with Galaxy (usually games that make use of some of Galaxy's functionalities, such as multiplayer support). Unless you opt out in the installation menu, Galaxy will be installed at the same time as the game.

Classic installers are the ones that allow you to install a game without any client. For most games they are the default offline installer choice, however for games which have the option of Galaxy installers you will find them under the "More" dropdown menu in the download page.

Step 1: grab can of worms
Step 2: open it

Depends on who you ask. Browser is easy and maybe gives a touch more control. Galaxy supposedly also easy and probably gives similar control, but you'll have to fish around in the settings a bit to get it the way you want it.

I've read that Galaxy tends to be better for updates since A) you get actual update notifications and it can be set to update automagically, and B) Galaxy will allow for patching, while for browser / Downloader files, certain titles you may end up downloading a whole new installer when a game is updated.

Note that you can have both. Installing Galaxy does not mean you're no longer able to use the browser or Downloader methods.

Classic Coke vs. New Coke

You kids out there will need to Google this disaster to figure out what I'm talking about. :P

Galaxy installers also include the Galaxy client with them. You can choose to install or not install it when installing your game, so the only difference is a slight increase in the installers size. Game files should be the same no matter which installer you use.

Just to make it clear for the OP - this applies only to installed games, and only if auto-updating is disabled, and not to standalone installers. Is the full client installer no longer included in the game installer?

No idea. I assume it still is. Thus "slight increase".

Classic is just the EXE install file to install the game to your pc without any internet or DRM

GOG Galaxy install requires the Steam like DRM Free launcher to organize games and show achievements if the game supports it.
Some internet required though for certain things like the built in store and forums

Choose What you feel you might like better, A single game or a program like steam to have all your games in one list/place to choose from.

I'd not call the addition of another 120+MB a slight increase in the case of quite a few games with Galaxy-ladden installer - for instance, Real Texas, The, the GOG Galaxy installer is almost the same size as that of the game's one.

Not to mention the waste of HDD space - if one has all if the 100 games of the list, we're talking about an additional of almost 12GB; that's more than the total size of the installation file(s) of a good chunk of games on GOG.

Define disaster? Coke had fallen to No. 2 in soda sales behind Pepsi, but after the return of Coke Classic they took over the No. 1 spot, has held it ever since and has not be close at all.

Also, it turned out to work in another area - when "original" Coke (Coca-Cola Classic) returned it came back with High Fructose Corn Syrup instead of cane sugar as the sweetener.

Most people were happy to have original coke back they didn't notice the cane sugar was gone and replaced with HFCS and that the taste was a little bit different, too. Some noticed and those who hoarded Coke noticed that the cans they had in the fridge at home were a little different than the new ones they were buying but it didn't make a difference in the end to them as the got their Coke back.

Also, New Coke (rebranded as Coke II later on in its life) stayed on shelves until 2002.

A few years back, when my collection was in the ~800 games, the average size of installers + goodies for the games was at 1GB. Last time I checked, the average size of installers + goodies was at ~1.3GB. The 120MB increase in size is (imho) slight, even if it would be an additional 160 GB for me if all my games had Galaxy installers.
P.S. No Galaxy installers were used in the calculations, though my memory was used, so numbers may be incorrect. Do tell if you want me to double check them.

While you're at it, I'd like to know the median size of installers + goodies rather than the average. I think it'll be more informative.

That would probably be more work than I care to do. But give me a way to do it through either Explorer, cmd or PowerShell and I should be able to give you the number.

Sure! (provided you've got Python installed on your system, alongside the numpy package)

You need to save the contents of this pastebin on a file called 'something.py' (e.g. foldersizes.py), and put it on the root folder of your games collection. I'm assuming that you've got every game stored on a separate folder, right?

To run the script, just open a console (cmd), go to where you saved the python script and type:

python something.py

(or whatever you called the script when you saved it)

It should take a short while, and finally give you both the average and the median in bytes, MB, and GB. :)


EDIT: I've updated the script, as the first one didn't do the MB and GB calculations correctly.

If you think logically Galaxy laden installer are mostly useless.

Those who have Galaxy installed have no use for the bundled installer.
Those who don't want to use Galaxy won't install it anyway.

Only those downloading their first game might have some use for it, if they want to use Galaxy. But then all the subsequent bundled installers will be useless for them too.