Java process not killed by java plugin and keep hanging out after the web page using it is closed

[Jung-uk Kim]

On Friday 18 November 2011 01:06 pm, Yuri wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have Java browser plugin insgtalled following the handbook:
> openjdk6-b23_1 + icedtea-web-1.1.4 + symbolic link.
> After using some page with Java plugin in firefox (like
> http://websdr.sp3pgx.uz.zgora.pl:8901) and closing it, I still see
> java process like this:
> 74450  ??  S      0:04.99 /usr/local/openjdk6/jre/bin/java
> -Xbootclasspath/a:/usr/local/share/icedtea-web/netx.jar:/usr/local/
>share/icedtea-web/plugin.jar -c
> Java process disappears after closing firefox.
>
> When reopening the same page, I see this java process reused.
> So it looks like java stays as a dormant child when nobody uses it.
> There is no reason to keep java process hanging since it can grow
> very large (in my case it's size/res=2489M/164M) and web browser
> usually is a long lived process.

This is a design decision made by IcedTea-Web author(s), AFAIK.  
Basically, they prefer faster applet loading.

Jung-uk Kim