Not sure I understand the question nor the premises for the question
- What do you mean by free download in first place?
- Are you in a place where you pay for band width and monthly data use, and need to pay for downloading programs ?
- Or are you referring to the cost (license fee) for the software in question.
If the Licence fee is a problem for you, then there are tools for that:
- There is a lot of open source programs out there. One very nice concept is the portableapps, a very very nice tool to pack loads of progams on a usb stick and you can run most of the programs without admin rights.
- For most apps out there, there exist apps that can do the same job. Eg. if you wonder if there are alternatives to Microsoft Office, you can do a visit to alternativeapps.net and search for that program, and you'll get a list with alternative apps, that in many instances can make the same job done.
Also, going further - If free apps is such a great goal, why bother with a paid version of Windows? You may rather go for something like Linux (Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc) and you still have a ton of software for disposal.