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Your Fav Task Manager?

There are 2 top task managing apps rite now
Task Killer by ReChild
and
TasKiller free by Thibaut Nicolas.
wanted to know which one u guys prefer.
i liked the Task Killer by ReChild....as it is easier to use..and more intuitive.

Not everyone will subscribe to what I'm about to say (type!) but.. I've stopped using task managers altogether now and I'm finding that the phone runs smoother and better without them... and it's using less battery too.

do some task managers cause programs to crash or stop working randomly?
my handcent and messaging were crashing

Nocturnal310 said:
There are 2 top task managing apps rite now
Task Killer by ReChild
and
TasKiller free by Thibaut Nicolas.
wanted to know which one u guys prefer.
i liked the Task Killer by ReChild....as it is easier to use..and more intuitive.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have task killer by ReChild aswell and no just go into the app and ignore the ones you dont to be killed.

Try System Panel (beta) it works well really well - search for it on the market.

I have tried Advanced Task Killer and for me the best is Task Manager, the one that has green droid on the icon and red circle with X inside it Altough, as time goes my RAM goes from 140 Mb to 80 or less, Im guessing that Timescape eats the memory as it updates because he is on my ignore list with few other programs.

Advance Task Manager is the best for my opinion...because my phone has 178 ram free now and has auto shutdown application and its more faster..
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im_iceman said:
Not everyone will subscribe to what I'm about to say (type!) but.. I've stopped using task managers altogether now and I'm finding that the phone runs smoother and better without them... and it's using less battery too.
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Click to collapse
I'm with you, every task manager ive tried either uses more battery than it saves or kills things that you really dont want it to.
If i need to kill something I now use the force stop option under applications in the settings. Astro also has a nice process manager that shows cpu usage and allows you to kill off individual processes.

pficrx said:
Advance Task Manager is the best for my opinion...because my phone has 178 ram free now and has auto shutdown application and its more faster..
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Click to collapse
What is on your ignore list ? I have Nimbuzz, Messages, Timescape, Weather and Facebook and on fresh start I have 150 Mb but with time it gets to 80 Mb...there is no way that you can have 178 Mb whole day and that some services are working in background. Or am I doing something wrong ?
Cheers

why are you worried about how much free ram you have? Have you ever actually experienced a situation where an app complained about not having enough memory?
Why not just let android worry about using the free memory in the best way it can. If an App needs more memory Android can always dump some of the stuff that is not important anyway.

Try to use Advance Task Manager and tell me then how much free memory you have...
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TaskOS was really awesome, then there was this update and now it sucks

Task Managers are only needed by pseudo multitasking phones/OS's such as Windows.
Linux/Android take care of their own memory management and so do not need task killers, in fact on Android they do more harm than good as they kill processes that you really do want to be running or at least resident in memory. It will slow your phone down and drain power if Android needs to keep restarting it's monitoring processes (eg. battery monitor, clock, alarm etc...) because the user keeps killing it with a task manager.
Also, just because an application is resident in the kernel does not mean it is being used, using any resources, stealing any resources or memory from anything else. If a new application start and Android needs the memory, it will take it !

^ Yeah, I stopped using a task manager a few weeks ago, and think my battery life has actually improved since doing so.

+1
im_iceman said:
Not everyone will subscribe to what I'm about to say (type!) but.. I've stopped using task managers altogether now and I'm finding that the phone runs smoother and better without them... and it's using less battery too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Phantasm4489 said:
I'm with you, every task manager ive tried either uses more battery than it saves or kills things that you really dont want it to.
If i need to kill something I now use the force stop option under applications in the settings. Astro also has a nice process manager that shows cpu usage and allows you to kill off individual processes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yep.... Astro is cool.... and now the phone is much smoother and battery life has improved....

I have been using advanced task killer, but will look into some of the alternatives suggested here.
Even if a task manager doesn't improve performance, I can't do without one. I just gotta know what is running in the background.
P.S. Why is this forum such a PIA for new users?

Phantasm4489 said:
why are you worried about how much free ram you have? Have you ever actually experienced a situation where an app complained about not having enough memory?
Why not just let android worry about using the free memory in the best way it can. If an App needs more memory Android can always dump some of the stuff that is not important anyway.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think the main point is people are trying to work out ways of increasing their battery life.
Good topic.

well i use advanced task killer by rechild, i decided to leave it closed all day today and let tye os do its thing. while i agree android can easily allocate the ram, in just 5 hours without task kill my battery drained to 68%, normally itd be around 88%ish. so my vote goes to task kill for better batt life...
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X10 Have Built in Application running in background call Wiper App (com.qualcomm.wiper.apk)
Can any expert tell me is this file works as task-manager in the system?

Hi all.
Is there any app\way to use something like this:
When we access the normal 'task manager'\'view running apps' (if you press the middle button of X10), if we long press the app we want, have the option to kill it ?
Cheers!

Best Android Task Manager - Open Processes

Hello All,
I wanted to see what everyone thinks is the best application manger for Android.
Also is anyone familiar with the Getjar free app store?
Thx All,
Force

What do people think of "Advance Task Killer"
It seems to me it shows all tasks, not jsut the open ones.
Regards,
Force

FYI,
Many people say talk killers are not necessary, as that is a windows phenomenon, Linux & android treating background processes differently.
Regards,
Force

I personally use Advanced Task Manager for $0.99. I have read the articles about how Android does not need task Managers because it is built in, but I know from personal experience that without it if there are running programs in the background my phone gets really sluggish especially when I get a phone call and it makes it difficult to answer etc. Take in account, this experience was mainly with the Hero (slower) but I use on my Evo now.

You know people will argue either way, because there is evidence to support both sides of the argument. so with that in mind- i honestly havent had the need for one with my evo, but it you truly are considering one- i actually have a pair to suggest.
one is OS Monitor- free on the market- great app for pinning down process that could be an issue- also supports dmsg repporting- and logcat is built in to- so if your testing something and it goes all wonky you can export the log to view on a pc and send it to the developer too.
the second is AMM- or Auto Memory Manager- free and donate versions on the market. There are pretty much a couple of sliders and you set it how you want android to handle the process. I have had great success with this app on my other device- normal free memory was around 30-35 and using this set aggressively i saw gains of 50mb at most times keeping my freememory to around 75-80mb range.
Hope this helps.

I take both sides. I have task manager installed, but use if ONLY when needed. Aka, I used it when I want to kill the browser after I'm done with it so next time I launch it I won't be seeing old pages.

I like EStrongs Task Manager.

http://www.appbrain.com/app/nextapp.systempanel.r1 is nice, it can kill processes, monitor system stats, uninstall apps and more. There is also a free version.

TREYisRAD said:
http://www.appbrain.com/app/nextapp.systempanel.r1 is nice, it can kill processes, monitor system stats, uninstall apps and more. There is also a free version.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i installed that last night, cool app

why someone who know don't explaine exactly how android works and do we need killers and if yes which one is best...
Everyone of us using something but question is that which one is best for our needs.

quick system info pro (free)
I only use the manual task killer widget when memory gets down around 100. Spikes it right back to about 250.
Whats your guys' normal memory range? I see someone on here saying 50 was normal for them but that seems REALLY low to me.

frifox said:
I take both sides. I have task manager installed, but use if ONLY when needed. Aka, I used it when I want to kill the browser after I'm done with it so next time I launch it I won't be seeing old pages.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does the stock Sense browser not have an option to kill the windows by hitting menu? On CM, I do menu, windows, and X them out

Apps running in background

K... I'm new to android (from iPhone) and I just bought the mt4g... I downloaded the advanced task killer, but every time I "kill" the apps, there are 10 more running less than 5 seconds later... I've set my autokill to crazy, have an ignore list, etc... any thing else I can do to limit what crap runs without me opening the app myself?
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kevo817 said:
K... I'm new to android (from iPhone) and I just bought the mt4g... I downloaded the advanced task killer, but every time I "kill" the apps, there are 10 more running less than 5 seconds later... I've set my autokill to crazy, have an ignore list, etc... any thing else I can do to limit what crap runs without me opening the app myself?
Sent from my HTC Glacier using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe you are not supposed to use task killers on Android because the system manages apps and when you stop them it messes up something. Here is a link: http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/

Correct. There is no need for task killers with these phones.

Glad I asked... uninstalled it, guess I'll see how it goes
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Yes sir! Plus thats why we have such big ram size
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Wow I didn't know this, I just uninstalled my task manager.
myTouch4G (Glacier)

It can also hurt battery life as well. If you constantly force close applications the phone will boot them back up which puts strain on the processor and uses more battery life.
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Speaking from personal experience: once there's enough RAM in the phone, there's no need for external task killer or manager. Yes, it was necessary on the phones like G1 or original MyTouch with less then 1 year old OS. At this point, Android matured enough to handle everything on its own and it does beatiful job at it. I am almost at the point of getting MT4G, using wife's old Cliq at the moment. I can't believe how much difference extra RAM does, it never slows down for me on 2.1 de-blurred. Be extra careful downloading multiple apps though because if one misbehaves it will be hard to know which one.
Remember, free RAM is wasted ram, especially true with FroYo

You should still use a task killer, just don't use an autokiller. Let's say you use play a game, open browser, open music, open 3+ other cpu intensive apps..They will not close on there own, till the ram is "extremely low". Apps still use cpu when in b/g, like syncing apps like fb and twitter.

Task Killers
I don't see any reason not to have a task killer...without it, how would you know if there is a rogue app on your system? With a task killer installed, I was able to see what apps were loading at startup and then if I rarely use it, I blocked it with Startups. This has had a huge impact (for the better) on my battery life as well.
I agree not to setup the task killer to aggressively kill tasks, but if you use it to see what is happening on your phone, I don't see the harm in them at all.

don't you think a task killer would be built into android if Google intended us to manually kill tasks?

I have actually been going into the packages and disabling them via a terminal emulator. It was really easy and it seems to have prevented them from launching again.

[Q] Task Killer on Nexus S?

Hi all,
How many of you all used task killer on nexus s ?
Was asking this because i was playing RealFootball 11 and it lags real bad.
Thus, im thinking if it might have to do with insufficient memory.
What task killer is good?

I will never use a task killer on Android. Task killers create more problems than they solve.

Mate I was a task killer user. But I have learned that is not necessary on android (unless its an antique version) I put all my faith in the app 'watchdog' personally as this works far more efficiently than a task killer. Apps do turn themselves off and I believe a traditional task killer does more harm than good regarding performance.

I see...
Heeding you guys' advice man
Anyway, still feel abit wasted that Nexus S cant run Real Football 11 lagfree

dplate07 said:
I see...
Heeding you guys' advice man
Anyway, still feel abit wasted that Nexus S cant run Real Football 11 lagfree
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Has the game been updated for gingerbread? Dunno if that would matter but may be worth asking the Dev.

I used to but overall they don't really work. 2.3 is pretty good at managing memory anyway.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App

Man, my NS was butter smooth the first day I got it, but after using it for a month plus and installing that many applications, almost every game will lag a little, even angry birds! I still haven't figured out how to use the WatchDog app properly though. I will either uninstall the stuffs one by one to see which one is the culprit or just factory reset my phone.

shrivelfig said:
I will never use a task killer on Android. Task killers create more problems than they solve.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
why do you say that?

Proteus27 said:
why do you say that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In Android, free memory is wasted memory. People not knowledgable in how Android manages memory think that they're accomplishing something by killing tasks in the hopes of freeing up memory. It doesn't work that way.
Android has a threshold of what amount of free RAM should be maintained, and then does its best to fill up the remaining RAM with apps and stuff you might want to use later; it's like pre-loading your stuff so it loads faster.
The irony of people using task killers to free memory up to "improve performance" and "save battery" is that in most situations they're doing just the opposite. If you kill an app with a task killer, Android will frequently just re-open it in the background to frill up that empty memory space back to its thresholds, thus using up more cpu and juice to reload it.
There are apps or even terminal commands (for root) that let you change that threshold number, and on other devices (2.2 and lower) for me, tweaking that number did sometimes make the phone feel snappier, but it was real trial and error to get it right. I haven't felt the need for it on the Gingerbread Nexus S.
If you're interested in trying something like that, check out AutoKiller Memory Optimizer. Don't let that name fool you, it's a poorly named app, this is NOT a task killer app, it's just a GUI interface to the minfree settings that tell Android's own memory manager what thresholds to use.
There's another one I used to use MinFreeMgr or something like that, but I can't find a link.
And finally, there are limited times that killing tasks is beneficial, one would be if you have an app that's run amok and won't exit on its own. I'm sure there are others, but it's usually a good idea to avoid that practice.

willcpfc said:
Mate I was a task killer user. But I have learned that is not necessary on android (unless its an antique version) I put all my faith in the app 'watchdog' personally as this works far more efficiently than a task killer. Apps do turn themselves off and I believe a traditional task killer does more harm than good regarding performance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Watchdog sucks, I used it for a week and my NS battery consumption was the same.

Proteus27 said:
why do you say that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://lifehacker.com/#!5650894/and...ed-what-they-do-and-why-you-shouldnt-use-them
http://androidspin.com/2010/05/25/why-you-dont-need-a-task-killer-app-with-android/

Task killer vs no task killer?

I use a task killer so im curious why some people say not to use them. What are your opinions?
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I personally use them and havent come across suggestions not to, as long as u know what you are "killing" and its not a system process , it should be ok and yes it does free up RAM

I dont use any task killer and Im happy

I personaly would have a task killer one that kills all when idle. and frees up ram due to the fact i like to do cpu hungry tasks often

Ystrem said:
I dont use any task killer and Im happy
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here, kill the task, and then feed the task killer the battery power saved.
I have tried them and found most of them didn't help much.

cnavi said:
Same here, kill the task, and then feed the task killer the battery power saved.
I have tried them and found most of them didn't help much.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here.
I don't use any of them.I used before but i don't saw too much help.Just task killer use cpu more and load ram.I use now just a shortcut of standard runing services default from android.

Don't use task Killers. Android has its own built in task manager Which works far better than 3rd party task killers. All you doing is making android reload everything again. Then you wonder why this app doesn't update in the background or work properly it is your fault. Your killing off the processes. Ram is essentially useless in android if it's not being used.
If you have lets say most phones have 512-1gig of ram. Your phone will never say you have 512 ram full please free up ram. It gets to a certain memory limit like depending on what it was set to and then end the processes automatically by itself. If there are many processes running android will start swapping out processes to replace for the new one. When your playing a game and say oh i want to browse the web to check on some game codes or whatever you can go right back to the game.
What if you want to listen to your own music as well. You can then go right back to the game in the exact spot left off. But if you go I'm kill the game process off you won't be able to do that. Don't press that Clear ram in that task manager you have either. All process will be killed including google services. Which will be reloaded again as well as system processes. Everytime android needs to reload its using more power meaning worst battery life.
The only time you should use a task manager is when there is a rogue application or a memory leak.

Watchdog
I don't use a Task Killer, but I do like Watchdog. It's more of a system monitor and lets me know if any background apps jump over a particular CPU usage threshold.
---------- Post added at 02:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:55 PM ----------
There is a free, Lite version if you want to give it a try. Amazon had the pay version as their free app o' the day a while back, and I jumped on it.
market.android.com/details?id=com.zomut.watchdoglite&hl=en

I use to use taskkiller but my phone seems to run the same with or without, so I got rid of it.

exileinoblivion7 said:
I use a task killer so im curious why some people say not to use them. What are your opinions?
Sent from my Inspire 4G using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i dont like task killers, if your really desperate for ram and use android, i recommend using the v6 supercharger script made by zeppelinrox. ofcourse the thread can be found here in xda. Iwouldnt recommend task killers for several reasons:
1 they take some ram space themselves
2 they use some cpu thus making ur phone slower
3 they use some cpu thus draining your battery faster
4 they make your boot time on your phone longer because they are being loaded whereas scripts dont have that issue
5 i havent actually seen any propper task manager that has like autokill option and woks properly so you constantly have to press the end tasks button (like on system panel for example) and thats quite boring if your doing it all the time... scripts dont have that issue

Killbynature said:
Don't use task Killers. Android has its own built in task manager Which works far better than 3rd party task killers. All you doing is making android reload everything again. Then you wonder why this app doesn't update in the background or work properly it is your fault. Your killing off the processes. Ram is essentially useless in android if it's not being used.
If you have lets say most phones have 512-1gig of ram. Your phone will never say you have 512 ram full please free up ram. It gets to a certain memory limit like depending on what it was set to and then end the processes automatically by itself. If there are many processes running android will start swapping out processes to replace for the new one. When your playing a game and say oh i want to browse the web to check on some game codes or whatever you can go right back to the game.
The only time you should use a task manager is when there is a rogue application or a memory leak.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great job explaining this man, I've been aware that killing apps just makes them restart. I really only kill apps if they are acting a fool.
And to clear things up I don't have a task killer installed, however I do use the one built into the go launcher app drawer to kill apps that go nuts.
I have used the v6 script before, however I recently downloaded Rom toolbox and it let's you adjust minfrees from there. You guys should check it out
Sent from my Inspire 4G using xda premium

I don't use a task killer. My phone burns less than 1% of battery per hour when idle.
Nexus One on Cyanogenmod 7.1

exileinoblivion7 said:
I have used the v6 script before, however I recently downloaded Rom toolbox and it let's you adjust minfrees from there. You guys should check it out
Sent from my Inspire 4G using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i have a low end phone, as i ran out of cash after buying myself headphones and an itouch, so i couldnt get the phone of my dreams and had to settle for a really cheap samsung galaxy 3 so i dont have a very wide choice of minfrees i can choose from... i got like 256 ram or something, and i dont use swap because i hate partitioning my sdcard...
im so definitly changing my phone in 2012, im either waiting for the nozumi to come out (huge sony ericsson fan ^_^) or im settling for the HTC gigabeats

Task killers are good when you see a rogue app that is draining a ton of your battery life but aren't good when you use the "Kill All" button. As long as their are poorly developed applications, there will be a use for task killers.

some people will tell you not to use task killers because it inhbits Android's normal functioning by interfering with RAm use, causes things to go wrong, running apps don't use battery, blah blah blah. but there are a few problems with these claims.
First, Android's RAM management is not flawless. no Operating system is. fanboys keep claiming it is yet offer no support for whether a 3rd party task killer is better or worse. in fact, they were all claiming this when Froyo was the latest. but then when Gingerbread came out, one of its new features was better RAM management, which fanboys around the internet praised it for, which means there had, in fact, been room for improvement, which they had been denying for quite some time.
second. there are around 500,000 apps on the market. some are flawed, causing RAM leaks and various other malfunctions that ANdroid can't always handle. a task killer is your best, and sometimes only option in this situation, as you might not reasonably have the option of deleting the app permanently.
third, battery life. it may be true that apps simply being running in the background alone doesn't use battery; I'm not sure. yet what fanboys routinely ignore is, many of these apps don't just sit there waiting to be turned on again. some of them turn on so as to collect user data about all sorts of things, then broadcast it to the developer for various uses. this broadcasting uses your phone's radio even when in the background, and that DOES use electricity - from your battery, not to mention data if you have a limited plan. a very large amount of apps do this, which is one major reason why ICS now includes a data management menu that monitors all apps' data usage, as well as a built in app freezer that stops apps from running until you allow them to again.

I use the one that comes stock, and alathough it frees up ram I dont notice any difference in battery drain (1% per hour) or any difference in performance

Falkner09 said:
some people will tell you not to use task killers because it inhbits Android's normal functioning by interfering with RAm use, causes things to go wrong, running apps don't use battery, blah blah blah. but there are a few problems with these claims.
First, Android's RAM management is not flawless. no Operating system is. fanboys keep claiming it is yet offer no support for whether a 3rd party task killer is better or worse. in fact, they were all claiming this when Froyo was the latest. but then when Gingerbread came out, one of its new features was better RAM management, which fanboys around the internet praised it for, which means there had, in fact, been room for improvement, which they had been denying for quite some time.
second. there are around 500,000 apps on the market. some are flawed, causing RAM leaks and various other malfunctions that ANdroid can't always handle. a task killer is your best, and sometimes only option in this situation, as you might not reasonably have the option of deleting the app permanently.
third, battery life. it may be true that apps simply being running in the background alone doesn't use battery; I'm not sure. yet what fanboys routinely ignore is, many of these apps don't just sit there waiting to be turned on again. some of them turn on so as to collect user data about all sorts of things, then broadcast it to the developer for various uses. this broadcasting uses your phone's radio even when in the background, and that DOES use electricity - from your battery, not to mention data if you have a limited plan. a very large amount of apps do this, which is one major reason why ICS now includes a data management menu that monitors all apps' data usage, as well as a built in app freezer that stops apps from running until you allow them to again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could you please explain what third party task killers do that the Android system manager doesnt do natively?

johnston9234 said:
Could you please explain what third party task killers do that the Android system manager doesnt do natively?
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Click to collapse
From my personal experience it doesn't kill some rogue apps that drain my phone's battery life. Occasionally I use the app "GPS Status" to help find my location faster and if I don't immediately kill the app after my location is locked, the app shoots up to 30-40% on Battery Status.

johnston9234 said:
Could you please explain what third party task killers do that the Android system manager doesnt do natively?
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Click to collapse
work responsively, to start with. every time i've tried to open the application manager on android, I first have to go through all the sub menus to get to it, then sit and wait for it to slooooooooooowly load up the list on installed apps, then running apps, then click on the app, then wait for it to load that particular app's info, THEN I can force close it.
two, they often catch apps running that the default manager doesn't notice, I presume because their developers code them to be hidden somehow.
so yeah, they're occasionally a valid option to use.

I'm happy with or without task killer )
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