Downloading Audible audiobooks without the download manager

Audible is a DRM-crippled mess, but for those who want to wrangle with it for their legal audiobook downloads, it's still pretty much the only option. One of the big problems encountered by users of non-standard systems such as Linux is that Audible forces on its users a download manager program to fetch the audio files, so you can't even grab direct downloads of your purchased DRM-crippled files. Even if you have a "supported system", you might just want to be in charge of your own downloads and avoid whatever possible spyware could be bundled with their download manager. Why not... it's your PC.

Luckily I've noticed that you can sideskip the installation of their download manager on any system by using a user agent switcher on your browser. If Audible sees for instance that you're supposedly using a Kindle, they're happy to make the download links into direct file downloads, instead of download manager instructions. Try out the "User Agent RG 1.0" extension for Firefox, which worked nicely for me in XP. Switch you user agent to Kindle, log out and in again and visit the "My Library" page on Audible and you'll find you can now download your .aa audio files directly instead.

Two fingers up to Audible's naff tech support for giving the "unsupported platform" excuse when you ask them for help downloading!