Honestly, I'd say offer both. I don't mind .exes as they're simple, dont waste my time with unzipping stuff and thus doesnt double the file space required, but at the same time I run XP so I dont know about this auto-file scanning stuff.... so if you have the space, offer both ^^.
As for the downloader app idea... I'd say the same thing. I tend to stick to browser downloads because tbh most download apps are either a pain to use, or keep trying to do things you dont want them to. But again, choice is golden, so offer people the choice if you can ^^.
Isn't this a comfy fence? ^^
-Edibles

Hi, I'm new and just wanted to comment on the download thing.
Why not some kind of torrent soultion for downloading the games? Sites like headweb.com(swedish, sry) and others use torrent with great success for this kind of things(large files, and legal).

Since when? Vista doesn't include a virus scanner.

Using BitTorrent would be a nice idea. It can be controlled. Just like oink, what and whaffel.
Birger :)

I like the idea of the app with a resume option, in case the download goes belly up.

EXE files is good idea, i no prefer ZIP Archives. Your downloader will be maybe necessity for bigest games, because interrupt of downloading in 99% is terrible. :-)

I'd prefer self-extracting 7-zip files (EXE) because the compression is better, and a background downloader would be fine.

If I'm paying for a game I don't want to also be paying for the bandwidth.

I'd say ZIP feels better. While I generally don't mind launching EXE while using Windows, they may be problematic when trying to run the game on Linux, using WINE. Besides, ZIPs look better when browsing directory as they have no own icon, they just show up with what my ZIP handler imposes. And, as you've mentioned, ZIPs, once decompressed, are more virus scanner-friendly.
Disk space consumption is not an issue anymore, I believe. Let's face it: hardly anybody is using gog with a PC as old as the games. We wouldn't be able to get along with a 2GB HDD nowadays, in fact, most people have dozens of gigabytes on their HDDs just waiting to be used.
As for the downloader - perhaps it's a good idea, but not for now. Just code it when you have nothing else to do. Gog isn't really meant for computer-illiterate users. If one is interested in old games, he surely already knows what the web is like and that using an external downloader for huge files is necessary. Oh, and by the way, don't follow Steam. Don't make it Internet Explorer dependant.

How about 7-Zip instead...? It's open/free and much better compression ratios than either patented PKZip or deflate (GNU Zip).

Offer both zip and exe. It can't be that hard to package both after all the other work you have done.
I like downloader apps as long as they are small, either offer other tools I want or just download and stay out of my way. In my perfect world they'd be tied into the Stardock Impulse app. I love the shit outta that thing. :)

What do you mean? Why would you pay for the bandwidth when using torrents?

Maybe some ISP's have different rules in US than here.
EXE does indeed take sometime to open. I don't really mind that much, but I guess having a choice to get EXE or ZIP can't be a too bad idea.

.zip would be fine and if you used RAR or 7zip it would be even better.
In this day and age of 1.5 TB harddrives who is left to cry about lack of space? 500GB HDD for $72.