HTTP, Persistent Connection always used?

Question

I can understand, that persistent Connections is used in combination with a HTML-Webobject. But as far as I have seen, persistent Connections are used with almost every Request. Requests for Pictures, Javascript, HTML... and so on. Can you explain me this Usage and how long those Connections are opened? Will the Browser close them or the Webserver?

Answer 1

There's a pretty good Wikipedia article on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_persistent_connection#HTTP_1.1