Why does every program you install today want to start up when Windows starts and remain running all the time in the system tray? It really bugs me sometimes. I'm not sure if they're using up memory or bandwidth, checking for updates every so often. I just don't understand the purpose.

I installed octoshape for watching GFTV and I just noticed the damn Octoshape icon in the system tray. What would I possible want the octoshape icon in the system tray when I'm not already watching a stream. I had to actually to choose to not start the damn thing with Windows, and to quit the program when I'm not watching a stream.

I've seen worse ones too. For some of the IM clients, you can only change the preferences if you are signed in to an account. That means to remove it you have to mess around with msconfig. Some others can't be removed at all without tinkering with Windows.

I've seen the desktop of non-techie people, and their system tray sometimes takes up more than half of the screen with all the crap that demands to be running all the time, but doesn't really serve much purpose until you actually want to use them. And Windows takes 10 minutes to load because of all that stuff.

There should be a standard for programs where they only load into memory when you want them to, and not just because it's installed on your computer.