*Ahem*The default download manager is rather useless, I agree. Although you can download links by dragging them to the downloads window, which has to be the most useless feature Firefox has going. (That said, the menu option 'open location' is also highly redundant.)
IE7 was announced yesterday, I think, via Windows Update. Mine's set to notify only, so I'm not sure if it would have auto-installed if the updater was left at the default 'let M$ do whatever the hell they like to your PC' option. Either way, the ignorant masses now have it available to them. Although the main PC - with the same update settings as my laptop - was informed via Windows Update that IE7 was available, and upon being told to download it (all via the system tray method), appeared to start doing so, but was then never heard from again. So perhaps there's a mistake in the installer.)
If / when you do get the Mac online, use
Camino.