FreePEP (siknet/FreePEP)
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What is this?
FreePEP is an automation tool that parses, batch-downloads, and converts electronic textbooks from the PEP (People's Education Press) platform into high-resolution PDF files.
Is it a WebUI app or a command-line tool?
Both: it ships a modern responsive WebUI that mirrors the official site's category filters, and an interactive CLI with menu navigation or direct command-line arguments for scripting.
How do I get it running?
Easiest way: download the prebuilt release, unzip it, and run FreePEP.exe, which opens the WebUI in your browser automatically. From source, clone the repo, install dependencies, and run the webui script or cli.py directly.
Do I need Python to use it?
Only if running from source; the packaged Windows EXE bundles its own portable Chromium core and needs no Python install or environment setup.
Is this safe to use for real textbook downloads?
The author states it's strictly for Python scraping and reverse-engineering study, not commercial use, and recommends deleting downloaded files within 24 hours and buying official copies for long-term use.
How does it handle the site's anti-bot protection?
It includes a built-in decryption engine and an automatic cracker for Aliyun WAF slider captchas, letting it access the catalog of 780+ textbooks without manual verification.
What happens if a download is interrupted?
The bulk hierarchical downloader (downloadall.py) supports resume, automatically skipping textbooks that are already fully downloaded so interrupted runs can continue without redownloading.
Can I speed up large batch downloads?
Yes, the hierarchical downloader runs 3 concurrent threads by default and lets you set a custom worker count with -w/--workers for faster bulk downloads.
Can I turn this into a standalone app for other users?
Yes, a one-click packaging script builds a self-contained FreePEP.exe with an embedded Chromium core, producing a zip that requires no Python installation to run.
What are similar projects?
TikTokDownloader, gallery-dl, XHS-Downloader, instaloader, botasaurus, turnstile-bypass, Website-downloader, bb-browser
Which topics is it in?
pyinstaller, captcha, scraper, multithreading, downloader, web-scraping, windows-app, pdf, web-app, command-line-tool, education, terminal

