If you are able to find a free mass directory submitter then I'd be amazed if it ever worked. Just pay the $25 it costs to get submitted to 500 directories. Definately worth it for some good high quality backlinks.
From what I understand - these directory autoposters don't work all that well. I tried one on a newer educational directory, but couldn't get it to work.
I use submitwolf, their enterprise version allows you to be a directories and search engines provider yourself. Useful for me and useful as a value added services.
I don't recommend directories and I didn't registered to them. I think it's harmful, you don't know when you get penalized...
Yea Brad callen is also offering very good tools for article and directory submission. but i will choose to do manually for both submissions. there is some problems in that types tools becaz all the directories are not supporting with automated tools thanks John
Proper submissions to good directories will not hurt however mass submissions are not the way to properly submit your site. At the least it will create too many links in too short of a time which will trigger some alarms.
I did a mass submit for my Detroit Tigers site and did one for my cheap textbooks site the old fashioned way. We'll see if there is a difference, and I'll report back my findings.