Help closing browser, app screens

[QueenLatifah]

Hi hi, I may be the only one who hasn't figured this out yet, but how do I close browser or app screens?--I mean ending them, not just moving them out of the way. When I hit the home button, it doesn't stop the programs from running. I downloaded the close everything app, but there's got to be a better way... any suggestions? Thanks!

 

[justjimjpc]

Hi hi, I may be the only one who hasn't figured this out yet, but how do I close browser or app screens?--I mean ending them, not just moving them out of the way. When I hit the home button, it doesn't stop the programs from running. I downloaded the close everything app, but there's got to be a better way... any suggestions? Thanks!

For the browser continually press the BACK key until all screens are closed and you will return to Home screen when the are all closed. Pressing the HOME key will leave the browser pages open but return you to the Home screen .. much the same as Alt-Tab in Windows or clicking on a tab in the apps status bar.

If you wont to leave an app running in the background then press the Home key, to backout of an app and close, press the BACK-Key. This is good for most apps ... some apps you can press the MENU key and there will be an explicit buttin option for exiting/quitting ...

 

[balazer]

Hi hi, I may be the only one who hasn't figured this out yet, but how do I close browser or app screens?--I mean ending them, not just moving them out of the way. When I hit the home button, it doesn't stop the programs from running. I downloaded the close everything app, but there's got to be a better way... any suggestions? Thanks!

Basically in Android, you have no control over whether an app is open in the background or not - and you don't need to. Android handles it for you, automatically and transparently.

When you switch from the browser to the home screen, the browser may or may not still be open in the background. Android will leave that process in memory so long as there is memory available. When Android needs more memory, it will ask the browser to save its state (i.e. the URL of the page that you were viewing) and quit. Next time you open the browser, if the browser wasn't still in memory, it will be re-run and its state will be restored. In general, you won't know if an app is open in the background or not, and you don't need to. The quitting, state saving, and state restoring is transparent for most apps. For the browser, it's a bit less transparent because you can see the page reload if you open the browser and it wasn't already in memory. Also, many apps are split into multiple processes, e.g. a front-end gui and a back-end server. When you are no longer viewing the gui, that process will quit, but the server process may continue running if it has work to do. That's how the music player works, for example. It's up to the app designer to use Android's process management framework correctly. I think all of the apps I use do a good job of this.

Process management in Android works remarkably well, and I'd recommend that you just not think about it.

If you have some compelling reason to force an app to quit, you can use Taskiller. But I would recommend against that, as some apps won't function correctly if killed.

 

[balazer]

BTW, what justjimjpc said about getting to the home screen using the back button vs using the home button is incorrect. Whether the process remains in memory has nothing to do with which of those two buttons you used to change away from the app screen.

 

[punkzanyj]

BTW, what justjimjpc said about getting to the home screen using the back button vs using the home button is incorrect. Whether the process remains in memory has nothing to do with which of those two buttons you used to change away from the app screen.

I have to disagree, every task management app I've downloaded and used verifies that the back button closes the app, it may take a few seconds, but back buttoning out of an app closes it.

Speaking of, the best task manager I've come across is Task Panel. It has a "wanted list" of apps you can set up that it will auto-kill when it checks for memory. I have it check every 30 minutes for memory to be over 30mb and if it dips below, it goes through the wanted list killing the troublemaking apps.

 

[Dallasguy]

So if I am browsing the internet while in the waiting room at the dr's office, when I am called I have two options to closing the browser. 1) hit the back button over and over until I get to the home screen. If I was in waiting room for 45 minutes that will take awhile. 2) Hit home screen, open up task killer and kill the browser.

Is this correct? Because this is what I have been doing.

 

[balazer]

I have to disagree, every task management app I've downloaded and used verifies that the back button closes the app, it may take a few seconds, but back buttoning out of an app closes it.

Perhaps some task management app is re-purposing the buttons, but on a stock Android system, which button you use to get to the home screen has nothing to do with whether the app is still running or not.

It is very easy to verify whether the browser is in memory by using ps in an adb shell.

adb shell
ps  |grep -i browser
app_34   21789 77    124544 21312 ffffffff afe0d5c4 S com.android.browser

I just did some experiments. After loading a large web page and then hitting the home button, the browser closed. After loading a small web page and hitting the home button, the browser stayed open. After loading a small web page and hitting the back button until I got to the home screen, the browser stayed open.

 

[balazer]

So if I am browsing the internet while in the waiting room at the dr's office, when I am called I have two options to closing the browser. 1) hit the back button over and over until I get to the home screen. If I was in waiting room for 45 minutes that will take awhile. 2) Hit home screen, open up task killer and kill the browser.

Is this correct? Because this is what I have been doing.

Arrrrrr... It doesn't matter whether the browser is "running" or not. You don't need to close it. All that matters is what you want to do. If you want to see the home screen, press the home button. If you want to go back, press the back button.

You don't need to worry about the browser using resources in the background. If the browser is not visible (either because you are looking at another screen or the screen is off), then it is not actively using any resources.

 

[AnnaKuz]

How do I remove the windows so that every time I start the browser it opens the Google home page? The UG says Menu, Windows and then click the X (close button) on each window, but on my Moment Menu only hass "New Window" - opposite of what I want. As the poster above I do not want to hit back tons of times to back out of a bunch of web pages that I want to remove, close, get rid of