Nothing. You can't even access your movie shelf.

Using this argument, one can say that the Downloader was just as compulsory as Galaxy. You had the "option" to use Downloader or not play any games becauese browser downlaods don't work for you.

Indeed, this is how spin works. "Try our totally optional...", all you have to do is provide an option, whether is it actually a possible option or not is another thing. Anyways, as I said, over two seperate countries and various supplpiers I have not had issues with downloads (have had issue with the suppliers of course) via browser, so I fail to see why this is not a valid possibility.

This. I used the GOG downloader since I've joined the site in 2012. Had some problems after GOG Galaxy started and now I use Down Them All. It works great, is easy to use and has all the functions that I need (more than GOG downloader).

Actually it has. You can download the installers using the option to download a backup copy. I'm not at home, so I can' tell you right now where it sits in Galaxy.
I have noticed that installers that won't download with the downloader, will download with Galaxy.
To be perfectly clear for everybody, I mean installers (game_name_2.x.x.x.exe), not auto installing using Galaxy.

No it hasn't. You can download the games and extras if you have a stable internet connection. At this time though there is no way to pause, resume or throttle downloads to your particular liking. Galaxy is feature-lite and if things continue the way they have it always will be.

I wasn't aware, I never tried pausing or continueing with Galaxy. It does seem to perform some kind of checksum verification, though I'm not sure.
What I did notice is that Galaxy in general downloads slower than the downloader. Speeds are 10-40% slower.

Thank you. I'll give that a go :0)

If people look at the DEFCON thread there has been an ongoing issue with that. It didn't work with the GoG downloader and people reported it did not work with direct download or Galaxy.