I'm seeing a lot of threads about how Impulse is bad, is DRM, and most of it is, unfounded, untrue or based on speculation (notice I said most, there are some with legitimate technical issues). I happen to like Impulse, and with so very few threads supporting Impulse, I have created this one!
This is ALL based on MY personal experience.
I am a very cynical gamer with a general and well earned dislike of most of many game developers/publishers; but I'm getting ahead of myself. I like Impulse, and I like Stardock. I use Impulse a lot, and have more then a few games and some non-entertainment software on it.
Why I like it!
It's easy to use, it allows me to stay up to date without having to scour the net and not sometimes guess which patch number is correct when they are unclear. I can use Impulse to easily access and purchase all the software Stardock has available. Now, most importantly, though not directly related to Impulse, is the very good support Stardock provides. I've been gaming for just over 20 years now (I'm 22), and have never seen Stardock (and by extension the developers they work with like Ironclad) screw anyone over, and whenever I have needed help, they have been very quick and helpful with their responses; more then I can say for very nearly every other publisher/developer I've encountered.
DRM? I think not!
I have seen a great deal of compaining about how Impulse is DRM. It just so happens that I've been on the short end of many DRM systems, being denied access to the games I purchase because the DRM on them decided that buying a game was not enough to make it legitimate. I have NEVER, EVERY, encountered anything even remotely like this from Impulse, the old Stardock Central, or out of the box.
DRM, and copy protection I found is best described by the DRM article on Wikipedia (see link below) as "access control technologies used by publishers, copyright holders... to limit usage of digital media or devices. In contrast to copy protection, which only attempts to prohibit unauthorized copies of media or files, digital rights management enables the publisher to control what can and cannot be done with a single instance." Now I don't know about anyone else, but I have never been forced to limit what I can and cannot do with anything from Stardock/Stardock Central/Impulse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management
The closest that one can related Impulse to DRM would be a support filter. In order to update a game, one must register on this all-in-one tool. No legitmate serial, no updates, simple as that. Other companies of taken measures to filter support, but all others that I have seen are obnoxious, like requiring a picture of your game disk (I'm looking at you Homeworld!).
In conclusion, Impulse is easy to use, with many features, and is not copy protection/DRM.
Thus conludes my post on why Impulse is good.