GOG.com announces they are responding to the concerns expressed by their users about the use of password-protected RAR files in their installers by eliminating the passwords (thanks DSOGaming). These were causing problems for some users while also raising concerns that the online distributor was losing focus on its stated mission to eliminate digital rights management from digitally distributed games. Here's what they say about the removal of the passwords:

As the topic of password protected archives included inside some of our Windows game installers sparked some heated discussions, we’d like to address some misunderstandings around this topic and let you know that changes will be made.

Password protection appeared in selected multi-part Windows installers, about 30 games from our catalogue that had large install files, over 6 months ago. We implemented it for various other reasons as well, many of which have been mentioned in previous posts. One of them was streamlining installation for the less tech-savvy users to avoid the issue of “broken” games after not using the installer to install them (you more proficient tinkerers have proven that it was a trivial barrier against the more advanced users).

We’ve heard your concerns regarding this solution and we do agree it could have been better. Although the same could probably be said about many other answers to this problem, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to do better for our community. To that end we will be removing the mentioned archive protection from the select Windows installers that had it until a better solution, both technically and philosophically, is ready. Please continue sharing your suggestions regarding such a solution in this topic - your feedback is very appreciated.

On a side note, we’d also like to invite Captain Obvious here for a moment to remind that GOG offers and supports games compatible with specific operating systems and prepared to be installed on a given system using our included installer for a reason. This is, from the very first day, our way of offering a hassle-free, user-friendly and welcoming experience for millions of our users, no matter what their technical skill level may be.

That is why we cannot guarantee that our installers will never change and will forever remain compatible with each of such unsupported tools. However, it never was and our goal to purposely break compatibility with some third-party extraction tools or emulators used by some of our customers - and, rest assured, it never will be.