Some of those - Nero, Col Edit, Acid 4 - are (I'm guessing) demo versions of well-known commercial programs. Probably crippled in some way.
ProTools Free is a 8 track freeware version of an older Pro Tools, which running on Win9X only (not 2000 or XP). I could never get the damn thing to work at all.
Most of the rest I don't know.
Speaking genericlly, most shareware I have downloaded (disk & system utilities for the most part) has worked quite well. If you want tratings, try going to www.download.com There you will find popular shareware with user comments, includeing a "Yea" or "Neh" percentage rating.
