title: Is using AsyncTask still recommended for loading listView items in the background?
body: <h2>Background</h2>
  
  <p>I've heard that there are some new solutions for loading data in the background which are more recommended than AsyncTask (like <a href="http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/Loader.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">loaders</a>).</p>
  
  <h2>The problem</h2>
  
  <p>AsyncTasks are great and easy to use. However, it has some limitations:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><p>The class itself has to be modified since it's limited by the number of pending tasks (about 256 or so). Of course, in a listView's adapter, I always cancel a task if it's not needed(for example when I need to update a view that was used for a different item).</p></li>
  <li><p>I also have to cancel them all (or handle in a different way) when the activity/fragment is being re-created.</p></li>
  <li><p>Because of 1&amp;2, I need to manage them and have a reference to all of them</p></li>
  <li><p>AsyncTask uses a queue of tasks, and sometimes I need to use a stack instead, so I had to create my own class of AsyncTask that uses a stack instead.</p></li>
  </ol>
  
  <h2>The question</h2>
  
  <p>Are there alternatives for AsyncTask?</p>
  
  <p>I know this was asked in some posts before (like <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10422697/android-loaders-the-way-to-go">here</a>), but I was thinking if there is a new general way to load data in the background which replaces the asyncTask.</p>
  
  <p>About Loaders, I think the idea is that they are used for databases and contentProviders, but can they also be used for loading (for example) data from the Internet (like images files) ?</p>
  
  <p>There is also a nice sample made by google (<a href="http://developer.android.com/training/displaying-bitmaps/index.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>, called "bitmapFun"), which according to what I see uses AsyncTask (and even extend it, maybe because of the same reasons I've mentionsed) . But maybe I'm missing there something too?</p>