As most of you are likely aware of, we keep an up to date downloads section here at TechSpot. While we mostly focus on the more prominent software tools and utilities we foresee our readers will appreciate having listed here, that inevitably puts us in the position of constantly monitoring for new software and trends in this industry.

After exchanging some emails with the developers of Download Accelerator Plus earlier this week, I began to wonder, how relevant are download managers today anyway? Personally, I stopped using one a few years ago when most of my web downloads could be handled just as well from Firefox and a fast enough broadband connection that wouldn't break up even larger files. Then, for most of my gigabyte-plus downloads I always rely on a BitTorrent client (uTorrent is my favorite), which you may still call a specialized download manager.


Still this behavior is quite different from that of the late nineties when using a download manager like DAP, Getright, or any other of the myriad available at the time was a must. Today you can even get tiny download manager plug-ins for Firefox, and freeware full applications are also aplenty.

So my question is, do you believe download managers are still relevant? Do you use them? And if so, which one is your favorite?

Discuss.