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I did read this question What is the right way to close apps in Android? but I want to know how to close - that means close - application to save power and download limit.

My observations tell me that Back button brings me to the previous page (something I am not after) while Home seems to me leaves the page loading in background. So the question is how do I exit the browser.

I tried Advanced Application Killer but I don't think it worked ...

Using HTC Desire on Android 2.1

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  • The xScope browser has an "exit" option in its menu, worth a look.
    – Alastair
    Sep 22, 2010 at 9:13
  • Yes, this is the ONLY reason I keep using Dolphin Browser HD...it actually has an EXIT button on the main menu, that allows you to instantly shutdown the browser and remove it from memory.
    – user11704
    Jan 18, 2012 at 2:00

7 Answers 7

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Closing the browser has no benefit. The android subsystem manages the memory on the device really well and will free up memory from background applications if it needs it. As I understand it, it does this by saving the application state in a database on disk. If you run the application again, it can then rebuild its state from the info in the database.

If you want to stop the browser from downloading and you can't see the "Stop" button, press the menu button. This will bring up the address bar allowing you to press the stop button. Although if the address bar has disappeared then chances are your phone is not downloading anything, unless the site you are on has Javascript on it which is causing it to refresh elements regularly. If this is the case you are on your own.

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You shouldn't want to close applications manually. Just stop loading the current page with the Stop menu item, and use the Home key. This will leave the app running in the background, but without costing power or wasting your download limit.

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  • ok then, so is there any one button solution to that? Quite often the stop button is not on the screen so you have to "make it available" ...
    – Radek
    Sep 22, 2010 at 5:43
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    also I cannot grasp how something is in memory and not costing anything ....
    – Radek
    Sep 22, 2010 at 5:44
  • @Radek See @Barfielsmv's answer for that. Also, I'm not sure how it could cost anything, something being in memory doesn't cost power, and RAM is freed up automatically by the subsystem.
    – Arda Xi
    Sep 22, 2010 at 15:04
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Applications are built to save their state to storage _at_any_time_, and to restore themselves from that state. They are also built to be closed by the OS at any time (e.g. when it needs the room for something else).

AFAICT, all applications share the same screen stack: opening an application's page "over" another one simply adds additional pages to the stack. The Back button just pops the topmost page off. The Home button pops all the pages off the stack.

The applications are still running and, if they are written as directed, will keep their previous state when you explicitly open them again. The difference between an application stored and an application waiting in the background is less than in a desktop OS.

Cheers

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Open a new tab/window on your browser. Close the tab you were using and any others that were open, except for window/tab you have just launched, which should just leave you with the new tab/window which should be your home page. Now use the back arrow. That effectively exits out of windows and solves any java issues too.

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The android designs says that when the user 'goes away' from the application the app should keep running for a fast start and for background music playing etc.

This means that what you're asking for is against the nature of android. Applications themself could choose to close themselves after you click 'a close button'. Since applications have to come up with their own solutions you can image that there is no 'one button solution'.

Using a taskkiller is a solution for this problem. A single program in the widget list to kill all unneeded applications for a performance and battery boost is a great help. I'm using Advanced Task Killer set up to keep my most used applications but to close all other rarely used apps.

There might be a browser with a close button but the one I use doesn't have a close button. Then again keeping open the page I last visited is a welcome feature.

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  • but the last visited page shouldn't reload itself :-) otherwise it could be a non-welcome feature :-)
    – Radek
    Sep 22, 2010 at 7:16
  • I tried Advanced Task Killer but the applications were still in memory ..
    – Radek
    Sep 22, 2010 at 7:17
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    Using a task killer is a known cause of loss in battery life. The linux kernel that your phone is running is far better at manging itself than you are. It will fill up as much of the RAM with applications as possible to ensure that your device is speedy. If more RAM is needed, it will attempt to safely shutdown applications that are not being used. There are tons of articles on Google search results that outline why, here's a random one: geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android Sep 22, 2010 at 20:27
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    So what you guys are saying that when I keep a memory hogging cpu cluttering game in memory my device should run better. Bollocks. There are a ton of google search results saying how good their results are when using a task killer and the explanation given doesnt even explain why killing processes uses more battery (should be 'restart' code and loading from mermory/network)
    – Barfieldmv
    Sep 23, 2010 at 8:41
  • I just came upon this question - all in all I find it strange that on my phone EVERY application when pressing back is stopped ( active application counter is decreased by one ), while the 'internet' application is NOT STOPPED. If memory management is so good ( and I tryly believe it is, mind you ), that I would expect much more programs just to go back to the home screen ( in stead of actually stopping the application ). I really don't see whe the internet application should be left running - whether it consumes battery or not.
    – Edelcom
    Feb 12, 2011 at 9:35
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Removing the browser entry from the recent apps menu will kill the browser in the sense you mean, but it won't stop any ongoing downloads. For that, hold down the download notification until it shows a small menu with "App info" on it, tap that entry, and press "Force Stop" on the screen that comes up. If the app responsible for the download is the native download manager, also clear it's cache (maybe even it's data) to prevent the download from getting resumed automatically. This is applicable for Android versions below Marshmallow.

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press and hold the browser icon until the inline toolbar appears, press the application info icon, there u can press "force stop"

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    I imagine this only works on specific devices or specific versions of Android. You may want to expand on this to provide more details, because this certainly does not exist on many of the devices I've seen. Apr 30, 2012 at 21:57

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