In the field of computer science, a process of execution is an instance of a specific computer program or software that is being executed by the operating system. A process contains both the program code and its current activities and interactions with other entities. Depending on the operating system, the implementation of a process can be made up of multiple threads of execution that can execute instructions concurrently or in parallel.

It is important to note that a process is not equivalent to a computer program. While a program is simply a static collection of instructions (program code), a process is instead the actual execution of those instructions. This also means that the same program could be run concurrently by spawning multiple processes. These processes execute the same code from the parent program.

For example, the internet browser Google Chrome usually manages a process called Google Chrome Helper for its main program in order to facilitate web browsing and other processes, to assist with various purposes. An easy way to see what different processes your system is running and managing involves using Task Manager for Windows, Activity Monitor for iOS, and System Monitor for Linux operating systems.

The following is a screenshot of my Activity Monitor. Multiple processes with the name Google Chrome Helper can be seen in the list. The PID column (which stands for process ID) reports the unique ID that each process has: