auxillary processes relating to applications that aren't in use, typically. monitors, schedulers, auto-updaters, "agents," quick-launchers, "i'm just gonna hang out here in the systray and occupy some of the system memory & occasionally crash or conflict with other programs"-ers, etc.
i'm sure you've seen plenty of programs that come with them activated by default, when they're completely unnecessary. most of them can be turned off with zero effect to the proper functioning of the program, but still software companies insist on including them anyway just for the heck of it.
4 or 5 is not meant to be an exact figure-- a lot of active programs create systray icons. but whenever i see people's desktop screenshots, they've only got a copy of ICQ/AIM and photoshop running but they've got like 10 or 12 icons in the systray, i just think "sheesh, what a mess!"
oh, and my initial comment wasn't meant to be serious. i'm sure Sandra is a pretty harmless program.
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