GDLauncher VS PrismLauncher

I used to use GDLauncher, but I would not recommend installing a launcher that lets issues like this one go by for almost a year without being fixed: https://github.com/gorilla-devs/GDLauncher/issues/1288

Skip all that manual install crap - https://prismlauncher.org/wiki/ or https://support.curseforge.com/en/support/solutions/articles/9000196904-creating-a-custom-profile or https://github.com/gorilla-devs/GDLauncher/wiki

Another way to make it easy, a bit less easy than the prior but a bit more customization - https://github.com/gorilla-devs/GDLauncher/wiki

The latest GDLauncher beta added an option to allow users to manually download problematic mods. You can get it here (click the Assets dropdown) or wait a few days for it to be released as a stable version.

I would have recommended GDLauncher until this happened to me last week: https://github.com/gorilla-devs/GDLauncher/issues/1288

Maybe give a different launcher a try, I use GDLauncher to run modpacks

maybe you could try GDlauncher it allows you to

Personally i use GdLauncher since it's really simple to use, it also automatically installs open jdk for you, something that basically makes the game run better than normal java, and can still manually download mods that have third-party downloads disabled.

Which other launchers could I use instead? – The shunted devs have established PlaceholderMC as a temporary official replacement. There's also ATLauncher, GDLauncher, and PolyMC itself was a fork of MultiMC.

Change meta server to https://meta.prismlauncher.org/v1/ and MSA client id to c36a9fb6-4f2a-41ff-90bd-ae7cc92031eb in settings to keep using PolyMC. Both of these are by the main contributors that now moved to https://github.com/PlaceholderMC/PrismLauncher.

The falsely banned devs of PolyMC have created a new Launcher and are working hard to push a stable release right now (Github - Discord)

there's one on the prism launcher github https://github.com/PlaceholderMC/PrismLauncher

It's completely unrelated to PolyMC, but the safe fork from PolyMC's last "safe" code state is being worked on under the name "Prism Launcher" (initially called "PlaceholderMC").

From what I know, PolyMC and other launchers pull libraries needed to run the game when first setting up new instances and also periodically update those. Even if you don't update PolyMC, these libraries could be updated by the owner, replaced with versions that contain malicious code. If you want to keep using it, but be safe just in case, this issue contains a screenshot showing how to replace the metadata server, including a working alternative by the old contributors now working on the fork called Prism Launcher.