yes, the Conan download cache keeps working as a feature in Conan 2.
It is enabled and configured with conf:
core.download:download_cache: To cache Conan artifacts (like conan_package.tgz) downloads
tools.files.download:download_cache: to cache user (recipes download/get) downloads
It might be worth documenting it in the docs in its own page.
Originally posted by @memsharded in #3276
cc @duffsterlp