why they give free downloads?

simply because they are provided funds by the software provider as they promote the softwares. so in turn benifiting the software providers. i think they must be having a contract with software providers on the number of sale bases cause otherwise it is impossible to have this big site for free. as they need almost unlimited bandwidth and huge webspace.

I realy do not know if they have the permission to allow people download those softwares free of cost.But,one thing is for sure the makers of the softwares sometimes use this poular site to make a publicity of their product.Also,these kind of free download features help a site to get more viewers.

They are giving out this software for free because the software developers had given them permission to do so. So the question should be why do people create programs for free. They do this because they get donations for their work, as a fun hobby, to allow people to test their software etc. As far as music people do this to get their name out and thus hopefully gain popularity.