Editorial note: Google Book Downloader is no longer available to download. The program has been withdrawn by its developer. Our original review is provided below for informative purposes.

Google Book Search now has thousands of classic books online for you can read cover to cover. Google Book Downloader, as its name suggests, allows you to download these for reading at your offline pleasure.

The application itself comes with very few instructions, although the homepage gives a little more help. The instructions tell you to paste the code of the book you want to download - the code is specifically the ID at the end of the URL when you visit the "About this book" page. It is possible to do this for some books even if there is no "download PDF" button on the Google Book Search page, although it's not recommended as it is not legal.

Once the book has been checked in Melon Google Book Downloader, clicking 'Save entire book as...' will convert the file to PDF format. Downloading the data can be a lengthy process, anywhere between a minute and half an hour or more. Conversion can also take a while, but the end results are good. The options tool is very technical, and probably best left untouched.

This alpha release of Melon Google Book Downloader could be really useful for students, although it's a little rough around the edges at the moment.