I don't know if they are different from "normal" icons. I don't know if I have such legacy tray icons on my system. I know that they are associated with xembedsniproxy process, which consumes memory. If I don't have such icons I don't need this process I will disable it.

I think you'll only find "legacy" tray icons (using xembed) from older applications that haven't updated in a while (more than simple bug-fix maintenance).
An example on my system would be davmail. You launch it and it runs in the background, using xembed to draw its icon in the system tray.
iirc, the Status Notifier Item protocol that replaced xembed has been around for long enough that you'll be hard-pressed to find much that still uses it. (but then again, xembed-sni-proxy exists because xembed apps are still being used)

Some googling turns up http://agateau.com/2011/statusnotifieri ... lications/ which has a nice overview/history of these protocols.

If you are concerned with the amount of memory that xembed-sni-proxy uses, you can always try removing it and see what breaks or stops showing up in the system tray.

Thank you for clarification.

I killed the process and did:

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sudo chmod -x /bin/xembedsniproxy

Looks like the apps I use don't need it.