Audiobook Downloader Pro offers you nearly 6,000 free audiobooks from LibriVox and the Internet Archive for you to download in your choice of MP3 or Ogg audio file format. You can browse the entire list, search for your favorite titles, or let the program tempt you with a random choice of authors and their books.
Both the program and its interface are simple and straightforward. If you know what you want, you may search for an audiobook by using meaningful keywords, such as the title or the author name (or just a fragment of them). Alternatively, you can tell the program to retrieve the entire list of 5,860+ titles and then spend some time browsing through it. Books are downloaded on a one-by-one basis, so every time you find a title you are interested in listening to, you need to choose an output format and tell the program to download it for you. The download window in the program’s interface does not offer you any information about the downloading process itself – the scarce information provided appears on a small separate window. Audiobooks are available in two MP3 flavors – 128 and 64 kbps – and as an Ogg Vorbis set of files.
The program also allows you to navigate to the audiobook’s information page directly from its main interface, so that you can check the different output options and read something about it.
All in all, this is a simple and efficient audiobook download utility. I would not recommend it for bulk download tasks, but I believe it will make happy to many audiobook users looking for the odd title in the program’s extensive catalog.
v1.3 [Mar 18, 2012]
- Digitally signed and timestamped the program executables.
- Tested for compatibility with the consumer preview of Windows 8.
- Tested on the desktop version of Ubuntu Linux 11.10 x86_64 Wine 1.4 RC6.
- The searchable catalog is now 32% larger (1250 public domain audio books and 81183 files were added).
- Updated the database engine’s DLL to the most recent version.
- When starting a download and Windows Internet (WinINet) is in the offline mode, that app now suggests to go online.
- Upgraded the data access library/wrapper.
- Fixed possible string leaking in the Search Results list.
- Improved detection of multiple running instances when the UIPI mechanism is in action (affected operating systems are: Windows Vista, Seven, and Eight).
- Upgraded the main list control.
- Assignment of hints/comments to the shortcuts created during the installation process.
- Several internal enhancements.
