what is a drm shill? what is the scheme version?

And the post where I agree with rojimboo? When I say blanket downvoting I'm talking about people downvoting all posts by a given user regardless of individual content.

"X made a post earlier that I didn't like, I'll get my revenge!"

I get that, but it seems that if anyone kicks the beehive around here, they get stung repeatedly. It's happened to me in mild forms, it continues to happen to GameRager, and Tauto is probably the poster-child for it.

Seems like you understood me in the first place then.

I make fun of people who were given 5+ years to find and get used to a different way of downloading the games. As well as the several community downloaders and third party general purpose download managers there is an official replacement for the downloader. I make fun of people who think that GOG should provide two parallel pieces of software that achieve the same thing.
I expect those that I am making fun of to downvote those posts, but to downvote serious discussion where I concede certain specifics seems counterproductive.

I have now tested for existing checksums in a few GOG downloads I did.

I used the following free program, which incidentally has some GOG switches - innoextract. I also tested out innounp.

So the checksums for each individual file in the EXE and/or BIN files exists in the main game setup file it seems.

This is what I currently use in a BAT file that I drag & drop the game download exe's on.

Checkfile.bat If you want the results to go to a text file instead, just add
>"%~dp0\Results.txt"
to the end of the innoextract.exe line

"%~dp0\innoextract.exe" --test --gog -p on %1 >"%~dp0\Results.txt"

If anything is untoward you get a Warning and or an Error reported after it shows 'Done'

I used it with some older GOG Downloader downloads, as well as a recent one I had to use Free Download Manager 5 for.

It ain't very fast with huge files, especially as it will check the main EXE and all associated BIN files.
But better than nothing I guess, when you want to archive without doing a test install first ..... thanks to GOGs lack of care for some of us.

A BIG THANKS to TheDcoder for giving me some info to check this path out.

Enjoy!

P.S. You can get InnoExtract here - https://constexpr.org/innoextract/
Just make sure you place the BAT file in the same folder as InnoExtract.exe ... or amend the BAT file.

If you are unsure about what a BAT file is, just ask someone here.
Essentially though, it is just a .txt file renamed to .bat, with only the commands I listed above in it, each a separate line.

I may or may not whip up my own EXE with a floating dropbox.

All the more reason to have GOG step in, support these tools or people, and make it official. The worry is that these tools will be left unsupported and will stop working at some point in the future due to people having lives and such. A GUI might be too much to ask from GOG, but a command line tool would be fine for most. And I have confidence they could throw in a standard GUI and installer for Windows at least, should they choose to support these tools. Mac/Linux users can handle a terminal, I imagine.

Do they also make you click on 10 different download links for one (large) game's installer, like Witcher 3 here on GOG, using the browser method?

Understandable. Though for many, GOG is *the* place to backup your games and store them on some hard drive for years to come. So to make things easier and to facilitate that, doesn't it make sense for GOG to support a tool like that? I mean, since people will do it regardless, in some way or another?

I agree, this is a good idea, and would alleviate indeed the horror of downloading big games through the browser, and solve some other problems too, like the server load you mentioned.

A python based tool is great, like you said, as it's platform agnostic. Open source is awesome if there are willing contributors who have the time and will to do it for free - so far we are lucky.

But if gogrepo or lgogdownloader are to be the main tools for either convenient downloading of large games , or mass downloads (with all the added functionality provided by those tools like checksum integrity verification etc), then throw these guys a bone here. Support them a little in some way.

I know for downloading single games, Galaxy is an option for some, no doubt about that. But convenient mass downloads? Nope. And I don't really concur with your point about GOG making it intentionally difficult to do that, so as to discourage it. There are better ways of doing that. What they are doing now, just seems like indifference and losing touch with the userbase.

TLDR

All in all @timppu, you explained well the possible reasoning GOG is doing such things, based on deduction and some speculation, and I can easily agree on most of the discussion points.

But I still don't understand why it's left to the community to provide these basic functionalities for downloading games on a commercial digital distribution platform, gated behind unofficial unsupported 3rd party tools for many users.

At least pin the damn topics on the forum for visibility ffs.

Me and likely most of the user base, if the wishlist vote count is any indicator(even accounting for a massive amount who didn't vote yet or won't bother to vote).

GOG.com Downloader still works! Kind of.

You simply need to enter the following line of your desired file into your web-browser URL bar.
GOG.com Downloader still works like normal, if you input the right file name.

gogdownloader://game_title_game_or_dlc_file_name/installer_win_en

"game_title_game_or_dlc_file_name"
=
"Game installers and updates: / GAME BACKUP COPY"
&
"DLC installers: / DLC BACKUP COPY" items that you own on your account.

GAME/DLC BACKUP COPY e.g.:
gogdownloader://shadow_warrior_classic_complete/installer_win_en
gogdownloader://shadow_warrior_classic_redux/installer_win_en
gogdownloader://shadow_warrior_2013_dx_9_version/installer_win_en
gogdownloader://shadow_warrior_2013_directx_11_version/installer_win_en
gogdownloader://shadow_warrior_2/installer_win_en

Games and their DLCs are no different file wise, the problem is the "extra goodies".

I'm fairly certain that all games (that have "extra goodies") share a universal URL in a
similar fashion to the Games & DLC. Which downloads all of the "extra goodies" as a
batch, into a single directory.

Unfortunately I do not know the "batch" URL for them. I've tried the following examples:
gogdownloader://postal_2_extras/installer_win_en
gogdownloader://postal_2_goodies/installer_win_en (obviously these two would not work, my first attempts)
gogdownloader://postal_2_extras
gogdownloader://postal_2_goodies
gogdownloader://postal_2_dlc_extras
gogdownloader://postal_2/extras
gogdownloader://postal_2/goodies
gogdownloader://postal_2/dlc_extras

BUT you still can download them as single files the same way as Games & DLC.
But it's a grater hassle than the Games & DLC.

And unlike the former, goodies have titles that can differ from their game title,
depending on which version of the game it comes from.
And they don't have a unified file designation,
just a random number sting (usually five numbers).

gogdownloader://game_goodie_file_name/#####

These are some "simple" examples:

gogdownloader://the_witcher/10473
gogdownloader://the_witcher_2/10843
gogdownloader://the_witcher_3_wild_hunt_game_of_the_year_edition_game/70013

gogdownloader://aragami/71333
gogdownloader://baldurs_gate_enhanced_edition/36313
gogdownloader://baldurs_gate_2_enhanced_edition/36343
gogdownloader://x4_foundations_game/81721
gogdownloader://neverwinter_nights_enhanced_edition/81442

And some "pain in the arse" examples:

gogdownloader://aragami_collectors_edition_upgrade/71363
gogdownloader://aragami_nightfall/80372

gogdownloader://baldurs_gate_enhanced_edition_official_soundtrack/76813
gogdownloader://baldurs_gate_ii_enhanced_edition_official_soundtrack/76833

gogdownloader://x4_foundations_collectors_edition_content_dlc/81736

All other goodies for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition (and Stellaris).

This makes managing links for personal archival very annoying, tedious & inconvenient to copy/past.
Maybe somebody can make a scrip that directs GOG.com Downloader
to a user made txt file with all their desired links? Or something to the same effect.

Another unfortunate consequence is that Alerts from GOG.com Downloader will no longer trigger,
letting you know that a Game in your Library has had it's offline installer itself been updated. :(

Soooooo, this kind of sucks, but it's better than nothing!

Oh, you can also still download your MOVIES through GOG.com Downloader as well. ;)
gogdownloader://video_game_show_the_witcher_3_wild_hunt_concert/en1video1

So for those of us that use GOG.com Downloader, WE STILL CAN!

Was gonna vote for it, but then saw I already had.....good suggestion overall, imo.
============================================

The problem(as I see it) is three-fold:

Some seem to use it hide posts by those they dislike(dunno why they don't use jerkmuter then, if that's the case for some), instead of to express disagreement with or dislike of a post(as was likely originally intended with that feature).

Some do so because they take things said too personally/out of context/etc(possibly due in part to being too emotionally invested in a topic/stance)

(Also some others likely do it to ALL posts by some others here to troll/pick on those they dislike on the forums...but that is likely a very small group with more time on their hands than common sense)

==============================

The thing is, here it is humans doing it, and not another "lesser"** life form that knows little else but acting on instinct/impulse.

(**=To all: By lesser I mean those animals that cannot process and react to things like humans and a few other species...I am not trying to put down any animal species)

I would argue that the humans here engaging in mindless downvotes across the board (i.e. anytime they see a user's name=instant downvote) are acting on impulse rather than rational consideration or reflection.

It's gone now, though(sadly), and people now need to get over it and move on(or buy elsewhere).

Proof please, else this is just spreading some amount of F.U.D.(even if one is NOT trying to do so by saying such).

This is a good bit of info, and I thank you for posting it.
=================================

Agreed....as I said, though, they/we are humans(not bees/etc) and should know better/be able to act better.

I thought some were bots :D

Bots/scripts run by others, yes(or so i've been told/puzzled out with a bit of deduction like: when the votes happen and the speed, etc)....but the ones doing it that way still seem to need to manually add new threads to their tools.....meaning they must read some of the posts before adding a thread and likely know what they are(at least in part) low rating(of me and others).

But enough about this.....we're here to talk about the thread topic: Delicious taffy....I mean the GOG DLer. :)

I can confirm that GOG Downloader is still working and the easiest way to still use it is adalia fundamentals script (which imo is a script everybody should use since it makes GOG just so much better and even brings back boxartpics and manual sorting). I just downloaded the just released "Lair of the Clockwork God" using Downloader ...