GOG's Preservation Program Is the DRM-Free Store Refocusing on the Classics

I used to like GOG until they tried to force you to launch games through their own launcher instead of them being their own standalone applications.

To my knowledge you can still download all offline installers without needing to ever use their launcher.

That being said, their launcher, GOG Galaxy[0] is amazing, and allows you to get a full overview of your games library across several services like GOG, Steam, Epic, etc. all in one place.

[0]: https://www.gog.com/galaxy

That's not true at all - the games are still downloadable from the website and every single one of them is a standalone app.

Which game are you talking about?

you can download all games without galaxy.

I use lgogdownloader on linux: https://github.com/Sude-/lgogdownloader

Not forcing but aggressively pushing it. At one point in time the offline installers were quite well hidden; nowadays they can be easily found under the "install with GOG Galaxy" button.

There was a period when GOG was using what can only be described as dark patterns to trick people into installing Galaxy.

I made a post about it on Neogaf at the time. Mostly to my surprise, it looks like the post is still there complete with my screenshots: https://www.neogaf.com/threads/gog-is-now-using-adware-esque...

However, this was in 2017. Today, it is very easy to download your GOG purchases without ever touching Galaxy, and I am very appreciative.

That's basically true. One recent 'exception' that happened to me is that, shortly after Baldur's Gate 3 was released, the offline installer would give you a different, older version than what you would get if you installed the game through GOG Galaxy, which led to some difficulty and confusion when trying to play with friends.