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Theres an insane amount of discussion regarding the need for task killers on android 2.2+ since the newer versions of android have their own managing system for applications in the background. Most people are recommended advanced task killer before they leave their carriers store with their new phone.
My personal experience when using a task killer is it seems to speed up the phone a bit when used, makes my sensation home screen switching smoother etc. Without it, there seems to be a little lag after 15 minutes of decent use.
So whats the real deal ? Do they hurt your phone/battery life or improve it?
There have been many threads regarding task killers. Not just for sensation but android phones. They are worthless.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA Premium App
The new phone manage memory pretty well but it doesn't hurt to keep a task killer on ur phone just to check once in a while what you have running. I dont have a task killer per say but I use the Go Launcher which in a tab displays all of the apps running, it gives me an option to lock the ones I wana keep running, so Ive check all of my everyday normal stuff, browser, phone, youtube facebook etc. and once in a blue moon I go and kill everything else by clicking one button.
Sense 3.0 stock gave me 80-100mb of free ram (running stock, normal everyday usage)
Go Launcher EX gives me 130-150mb free ram (running stock, normal usage)
Go Launcher tweeked settings and killing extra tasks gives me 190-250mb free ram
Now, that's a lot of free ram, saved cpu cycles and ultimately improved battery life. Thats the only real practical gain... battery life. i mean the phone powerful enough to run all of the tasks of a power user and then some so performance on my sensation is never an issue for me anyway. You load up crazy live wallpapers and 3D animations and such, yea sure it'll get sluggish but killing random tasks will improve the efficiency only by a small margin anyway.
Task killer is like a tune up, once in a while. Or u can just simply restart your phone like my GF does every once in a while.
mobileusman said:
The new phone manage memory pretty well but it doesn't hurt to keep a task killer on ur phone just to check once in a while what you have running. I dont have a task killer per say but I use the Go Launcher which in a tab displays all of the apps running, it gives me an option to lock the ones I wana keep running, so Ive check all of my everyday normal stuff, browser, phone, youtube facebook etc. and once in a blue moon I go and kill everything else by clicking one button.
Sense 3.0 stock gave me 80-100mb of free ram (running stock, normal everyday usage)
Go Launcher EX gives me 130-150mb free ram (running stock, normal usage)
Go Launcher tweeked settings and killing extra tasks gives me 190-250mb free ram
Now, that's a lot of free ram, saved cpu cycles and ultimately improved battery life. Thats the only real practical gain... battery life. i mean the phone powerful enough to run all of the tasks of a power user and then some so performance on my sensation is never an issue for me anyway. You load up crazy live wallpapers and 3D animations and such, yea sure it'll get sluggish but killing random tasks will improve the efficiency only by a small margin anyway.
Task killer is like a tune up, once in a while. Or u can just simply restart your phone like my GF does every once in a while.
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thanks man very helpful stuff
I never had a need for task killers with any of my Android phones!
bobzoz said:
thanks man very helpful stuff
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NP, also in my opinion an efficient custom rom will do wonders for the Sensation... can't wait for the s-off update from HTC.
dubie76 said:
There have been many threads regarding task killers. Not just for sensation but android phones. They are worthless.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA Premium App
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they are not worthless if used correctly
I use the stock task manager and watchdog. Helps my battery alot
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA Premium App
Confusion
I'd stay away from 3rd party task managers if possible. Especially on a phone running 2.3+. The ones given will most likely handle task killing in a more appropriate manner, instead of just bringing things to a complete halt, which can be detrimental for some apps.
There does seem to be a discrepancy between the two task managers on the sensation, though. Like posted above, with general usage and sense the HTC provided task manager shows about 80-100mb free. However, I had a habit of going into settings>applications>running services to see how much RAM was available (stock 2.3 way of task killing - habit I picked up from my Nexus S) and it normally lists it somewhere around 200mb free.
I'm not sure which is more accurate, but I'm betting on the longer method, since it's in the core of gingerbread. Plus, on every past phone I've had if it went below 80mb I would see some significant lag whereas this isn't the case on the sensation. My Nexus S on average had around 120-150mb free, and the sensation has 256mb more RAM. I know sense is a ram hog, but max I see it taking up is 150mb, so 200mb of total free space seems about right.
I beta-test a LOT of apps, and when they hang or otherwise cannot be killed off, a task manager/killer does the job faster than thumbing through the menus to do it. I only use it judiciously, however..to resolve a specific app.
c19932 said:
they are not worthless if used correctly
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This is correct. It's an often debated topic, but I've seen the benefits in battery life and data usage when using an app like Autostarts and wise use of a task killer. Till the Sensation is 100% rooted, Autostarts can only be used to a limited extent. But with full use of Autostarts, my use of a task killer is limited, though still worth having.
Here's a portion of a good discussion on the topic and posted by a recognized Android developer who knows the deal.
Yup. Autostarts is a must-have for anyone who wants a longer battery life.
and task killers are extremely useful once you have excluded all the appropriate apps. My mom is smartphone-illiterate, and sometimes she would open random apps by mistake. With a task killer she could end all those process with 1-click before her phone becomes more chaotic (and of course, I excluded all the appropriate apps to begin with)
Been wondering on whether to use task killers on the Desire S.
Read many articles why you shouldn't use them, but on the other hand i see many people using them.
On my Galaxy Tab, and S2, they both come preinstalled with task killers, and i use them. They help beacause my Tab slows down alot!
But on the Desire S they isnt a task killer present. I havent experienced and lags or anything, since i've had the device for a week.
But just wondering if i use a task killer can i improve the battery life further?
Why did htc not include a task killer, but in sense 3.0 ROms they have it?
also is there any apk etc, to get that new HTC Task Manager without having to change ROM?
So do you use a task killer? Does it improve battery life? If so, which task killer do you use?
Cheers guys
i use advanced task killer pro. it's great. MIUI has an in-built task killer. IDK about battery life, but well, free RAM sure improves multitasking.
I answered I have it but don't use it, as I don't find that the phone lags and even though I do have one installed I use it very very rarely.
I have the htc task killer (as it comes within LBC ROM) , I use it very rarely and only when I find that a process is mis-behaving and not FC'ing on its own.
I also have fast reboot which again I use very sparingly, this closes and then restarts all of the running processes and is like a reboot without powering down the phone (so saves battery) I find that it's useful when attempting to identify sources of battery drain etc.
Ultimately not all programs will function as they should, so I find that its best to have one and not use it rather than not have one and need it
you dont need task killers on android
android automatically kills tasks which are not used when it requires memory(& it usually is very good at this)
& tasks on the RAM do not take any battery,they take battery only when they are active & are using the processor
task managers can actually have a negative effect on your battery life,if you kill a app it will take more processing power to restart again & will cost you more battery but if you leave it on the ram it wont take any battery & starting it again will take less battery
& i have read many android users saying that uninstalling task managers helps them with their lagg problems
ben_pyett said:
I answered I have it but don't use it, as I don't find that the phone lags and even though I do have one installed I use it very very rarely.
I have the htc task killer (as it comes within LBC ROM) , I use it very rarely and only when I find that a process is mis-behaving and not FC'ing on its own.
I also have fast reboot which again I use very sparingly, this closes and then restarts all of the running processes and is like a reboot without powering down the phone (so saves battery) I find that it's useful when attempting to identify sources of battery drain etc.
Ultimately not all programs will function as they should, so I find that its best to have one and not use it rather than not have one and need it
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Thanks for the info ben! I will check out that reboot app also just found out Android has its own killer if you need to kill apps
Sent from my HTC Desire S using XDA Premium App
kartkk said:
you dont need task killers on android
android automatically kills tasks which are not used when it requires memory(& it usually is very good at this)
& tasks on the RAM do not take any battery,they take battery only when they are active & are using the processor
task managers can actually have a negative effect on your battery life,if you kill a app it will take more processing power to restart again & will cost you more battery but if you leave it on the ram it wont take any battery & starting it again will take less battery
& i have read many android users saying that uninstalling task managers helps them with their lagg problems
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Thanks kartkk! Just the info I read too guess ill defo not be using a task killer for normal use then
Sent from my HTC Desire S using XDA Premium App
I shouldn't have worried at the first place if i did open alot of application in my android. thought that it works like windows.
What's bad are automatic task killers. I use System Panel / Task Manager mostly to keep track with my battery usage history & system info but barely use it to kill tasks.
Automatic Task Killer are like most "Tuning" tools on Windows. You never know exactly what they do. There ist no need of "Free" RAM on Android. And, as written, killing a Task will not increase battetry life.
ben_pyett said:
I answered I have it but don't use it, as I don't find that the phone lags and even though I do have one installed I use it very very rarely.
I have the htc task killer (as it comes within LBC ROM) , I use it very rarely and only when I find that a process is mis-behaving and not FC'ing on its own.
I also have fast reboot which again I use very sparingly, this closes and then restarts all of the running processes and is like a reboot without powering down the phone (so saves battery) I find that it's useful when attempting to identify sources of battery drain etc.
Ultimately not all programs will function as they should, so I find that its best to have one and not use it rather than not have one and need it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks everyone for the input
Ben, I have installed the fast reboot app, and I am very pleased with it
Thanks for sharing! Saves me a full reboot when some apps aren't working
Cheers mate!
Sent from my HTC Desire S using XDA Premium App
So I'm on CM7 RC1, Latest netarchy bfs, undervolted -20mv, governed on demand, CPU 100-800. Got about 17 hours with normal for me use, thought maybe I could squeeze out even more battery life with an auto task killer and got about 12 hours. Has anyone else experienced this? And its the first task killer that shows up if you search auto task killer gingerbread on the market.
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using XDA App
A lot of them do use memory. If you use some they do. I use the ones in the rom like miui or like go launchers. Is you look at battery usage it will prove what your saying. Also setcpu is awesome because you can make screen off priorities and even with data it saves tons.
Sent from my Supersonic using XDA Premium
try using auto memory manager
works great for me
To me it makes sense if a task killer would cause more battery drain. Imagine it's trying to kill a task and after a few minutes later the task try to restart itself again -- then go on this loop for the whole day.
Task killers are bull****. They create more problems than they solve. They have been so misused that Google finally had to remove the possibility to kill tasks in Android 2.2. If you have Android 2.2+, task killers just don't work!
The one and only time a task killer is useful, is when you have a specific app that is misbehaving. Then, and only then, you use a task killer to kill just that one app.
http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/
http://androidforums.com/evo-4g-tips-tricks/193170-automatic-task-killer-why-you-need.html
already stop using task killer after i watched one video on youtube .
" android dont need your help "
suksit said:
To me it makes sense if a task killer would cause more battery drain. Imagine it's trying to kill a task and after a few minutes later the task try to restart itself again -- then go on this loop for the whole day.
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shrivelfig said:
Task killers are bull****. They create more problems than they solve. They have been so misused that Google finally had to remove the possibility to kill tasks in Android 2.2. If you have Android 2.2+, task killers just don't work!
The one and only time a task killer is useful, is when you have a specific app that is misbehaving. Then, and only then, you use a task killer to kill just that one app.
http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/
http://androidforums.com/evo-4g-tips-tricks/193170-automatic-task-killer-why-you-need.html
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Yep - task-killers are a relic of Android 1.1, when Android needed help regulating tasks. Since Android 1.5 they've been at best redundant, and at worst counter-productive. And since 2.2, they've been downright useless.
Hi all, ive had my play for a few months now and im having problems with battery life as most seem to have had at some point. Ive tried a bigger battery but it turns the phone into something from the 90s lol....so i then tried some task killers but ive noticed they seem to kill a few tasks, then 5 mins later the tasks have started themselves up again so i spend my time going in and out of the task killer hitting optimise which is a total pain and im thinking pointless? Ive heard these newer builds of android manage tasks anyway but i think there are still some tasks/processes i could do without... My question is, would it just be better to uninstall the task manager and then manually force close tasks/processes i dont need and if i do do this will they stay closed/killed till i manually open them again or reboot, or will they automatically restart themselves? Im mainly talking about preloaded stuff i dont need like timescape and data monitor and other battery eating rubbish.
Rooting is an option but now being on 2.3.3 and awaiting 2.3.4 it seems like alot of agro just to clear some running bloatware (downgrading to uk generic firmware 2.2 then gingerbreak then upgrading then removing bloatware then reinstalling removed bloatware for every update, sigh)... If the damn tasks would just stay closed im sure my battery would last a bit longer...
So any difference force closing tasks manually vs task killers and would it help with battery life?
This is a great phone with 2 flaws one is battery life the second is small internal memory... Rooting seems to help fix these problems from what i have read. Why cant sony release a small app/program to let us clear the bloatware without the hassle of rooting.
This has turned into more of a rant, whoops!
Any ideas...?
Sent from my R800i using XDA App
Right understand this. There is no point closing apps or using task killers in android. It makes no sence. This isnt windows, android handles ram in a totally diffrent way to windows, In windows the more free ram you have the faster the pc/phone right? well it's the oposite in android, the less free ram the better, It means android is managing it's own workload, unlike windows application are split into 2 catagories, Applications and process, Now android can have an application running in the background but it will freeze the active process if your not using it, It will keep the ram that application is using a keep it save, so when you relaunch the app it's fast and smooth, Kill the app and you may reclaim the ram but you have to wait for the application to reload and restart. I think life hacker tells it better then me. Read this!
"Android Task Killers Explained: What They Do and Why You Shouldn’t Use Them
Android task killers improve your phone's performance while also boosting battery life—or at least that's the much-debated promise. Here's a look at how task killers actually work, when you should (or shouldn't) use them, and what you can do instead.
A task killer is an app from which you can (sometimes automatically) force other apps to quit, the hope being that the fewer apps you have running in the background, the better your Android's performance and battery life will be. Not everyone agrees with this premise, though. The argument about whether task killers are effective rages all over the internet: Android forums are full of threads with constant bickering and conflicting anecdotal experience, making it difficult for most users to make sense of the situation.
Below, I'm going to dig into the truth about Android task killers: that apart from maybe some older phones, Android manages tasks fairly well on its own, and how task killers present quite a few problems. I'll also take a look at the rare occasions when they're useful, and offer some alternatives you should try to improve your phone's performance and battery-life quirks.
Before we dive in, here's a quick overview of how Android handles process management by default.
How Android Manages Processes
In Android, processes and Applications are two different things. An app can stay "running" in the background without any processes eating up your phone's resources. Android keeps the app in its memory so it launches more quickly and returns to its prior state. When your phone runs out of memory, Android will automatically start killing tasks on its own, starting with ones that you haven't used in awhile.
The problem is that Android uses RAM differently than, say, Windows. On Android, having your RAM nearly full is a good thing. It means that when you relaunch an app you've previously opened, the app launches quickly and returns to its previous state. So while Android actually uses RAM efficiently, most users see that their RAM is full and assume that's what's slowing down their phone. In reality, your CPU—which is only used by apps that are actually active—is almost always the bottleneck.
Why Task Killers Are (Usually) Bad News
Apps like Advanced Task Killer, the most popular task killer in the Market, act on the incorrect assumption that freeing up memory on an Android device is a good thing. When launched, it presents you with a list of "running" apps and the option to kill as many as you want. You can also hit the Menu button to access a more detailed "Services" view, that lists exactly which parts of each application are "running", how much memory they take up, and how much free memory is available on your phone. This set-up implies that the goal of killing these apps is to free up memory. Nowhere on the list does it mention the number of CPU cycles each app is consuming, only the memory you'll free by killing it. As we've learned, full memory is not a bad thing—we want to watch out for the CPU, the resource that actually slows down your phone and drains your battery life.
Thus, killing all but the essential apps (or telling Android to kill apps more aggressively with the "autokill" feature) is generally unnecessary. Furthermore, it's actually possible that this will worsen your phone's performance and battery life. Whether you're manually killing apps all the time or telling the task killer to aggressively remove apps from your memory, you're actually using CPU cycles when you otherwise wouldn't—killing apps that aren't doing anything in the first place.
In fact, some of the processes related to those apps will actually start right back up, further draining your CPU. If they don't, killing those processes can cause other sorts of problems—alarms don't go off, you don't receive text messages, or other related apps may force close without warning. All in all, you're usually better off letting your phone work as intended—especially if you're more of a casual user. In these instances, a task killer causes more problems than it solves.
What You Should Do Instead
That said, not all apps are created equal. Many of you have used task killers in the past and actually found that after freeing up memory, your phone works a bit better. It's more likely that this is because you've killed a bad app—one that was poorly coded, and (for example) keeps trying to connect to the internet even when it shouldn't. Any performance increase you experience is more likely because you killed the right app, not because you freed up loads of memory (or, in many cases, it's just placebo). Instead of killing all those apps, find out which ones are actually causing the problems. If you really know what you're doing, you may benefit from using a task killer to stop the one or two inefficient-but-loved apps on your phone.
Note, however, that this is still a contested notion. A lot of developers (including ROM builder extraordinaire, Cyanogen) will not even look at your bug reports if you're using a task killer. In this humble blogger's opinion, your best bet is to stay away from regular task killer usage entirely. If you absolutely have to have that one battery-killing app on your phone, though, kill away—just be aware that when you experience a recurring Android bug later on, the task killer may be at fault. Of course, you can just stop using it to determine whether that is or isn't the case.
With task killers firmly in the better-off-without box, there are still a number of other things you can do to fill the void, improving your performance and battery life:
Watch for Runaway Processes: Previously mentioned Watchdog is a slightly different kind of task killer, in the sense that instead of telling you your phone's out of memory and it's time to go on a task killing spree, it alerts you when the occasional app starts eating up CPU for no reason. You can then kill the app with Watchdog and get on with your day (though honestly, at that point, I usually just reboot my phone). If it happens often with the same app, however, you may want to move on to the next step.
Uninstall Bad Apps: Worse than the occasional, one-time runaway app is the poorly coded, always-eating-CPU app. If you find (with Watchdog or through some other method) that a particular app seems to drain CPU and battery life whenever it's running, confirm your suspicions by uninstalling it and seeing what happens. If an app is causing problems on your phone, you're probably better off without it.
We advocate rooting Android devices a lot at Lifehacker, but that's because it really is as useful as everyone says it is. You can over- and underclock your phone with SetCPU, install custom ROMs that noticeably improve performance and battery life, and use the ever-useful, crapware-thwarting Autostarts utility to stop apps from starting up on your phone in the first place. Honestly, with one-click rooting apps like previously mentioned Universal Androot available for most phones, rooting only takes a few minutes to do, and you'll be much happier for it.
Update: Many of you also mentioned the root-only app Titanium Backup, which will help you get rid of the pre-installed crapware that comes on most phones, which are one of the worst offenders of phone lag. Thanks to all of you that sent this in!
Seriously, Use the Power Control Widget: This may sound ridiculously obvious, but if you aren't already using some form of the Power Control widget, you should. The things that drain the most battery on any smartphone are Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and your screen. Turn them off when you don't need them and you'll find that you can eke out considerably more battery life.
Charge Your Phone: Even more obvious yet rarely heeded advice: Charge your phone often. This isn't as hard as it sounds for most people. While you're sometimes stuck going out for 14 hours with no place to charge your phone, the majority of us spend our days in our homes, our offices, and other places rife with electrical outlets. Buy a few extra chargers and place them strategically around your home, car, and office. Whenever you're sitting around at home or working away at your desk, you can use that time to dock your phone and give it some extra juice without worrying about battery or performance drains. Before I upgraded to Android 2.2, my battery life was pretty awful, but just having a charger in my car and next to my computer made a huge difference in how often I got the dreaded "low battery" message."
Theres no way to remove the bloatware without root access. I rooted my xplay yesterday using the new zergrush method, you dont need to downgrade or anything you just type in a bunch of stuff in the command promt and its done.
Just to add on to AndroHero's post. In short, Task Killers actually REDUCE your battery life. Just leave it alone, turn off bluetooth and wifi, etc when youre not using them, keep your text message conversations low, and your email inbox clear. Thats about all you can do.
Also the battery life may be related to your coverage area. My phone will last all weekend at home, but is dead in 8 hours at my office due to all the interference and poor cell service coverage, its always searching for signal.
Very interesting thank you for the detailed explanation and tips. Im gonna remove my task killer and try watchdog if i can, to keep an eye on my cpu. I am also going to look into rooting my phone, its just the constant android updates and horror storys of rooted phones with removed bloatware bricking after OTA thats putting me off.
I can understand how having an app in memory ready to go keeps your phone quick (in the same way a cookie in your browser cache makes a page load faster?) but if the app is monitoring data or connecting to the net then they are using some cpu and need to be terminated or stopped from starting. It looks like the only way to do this is to root and then as said in your post ill beable to stop them starting up in the first place.
Thanks again for your time and info
Sent from my R800i using XDA App
b4d5h0t said:
Very interesting thank you for the detailed explanation and tips. Im gonna remove my task killer and try watchdog if i can, to keep an eye on my cpu. I am also going to look into rooting my phone, its just the constant android updates and horror storys of rooted phones with removed bloatware bricking after OTA thats putting me off.
I can understand how having an app in memory ready to go keeps your phone quick (in the same way a cookie in your browser cache makes a page load faster?) but if the app is monitoring data or connecting to the net then they are using some cpu and need to be terminated or stopped from starting. It looks like the only way to do this is to root and then as said in your post ill beable to stop them starting up in the first place.
Thanks again for your time and info
Sent from my R800i using XDA App
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Click to collapse
Rooting is not going to do this for you. Rooting WILL allow you to remove apps that have no use to you whatsoever. But apps, even ones you aren't using are still going to behave like this. Not only that, but those actions are part of what keeps them snappy. And if you kill them, all you would be doing is making it harder and slower to run them when you need to as it will do all those things you wanted it to not do while it was in the background. That drains the battery more. The path you are following with this isn't gonna solve your problem. Android manages its memory on its own better than any of us can.
As I mentioned about coverage area, for example do you have poor service where you are? If you have WiFi keeping it on will prevent the phone from searching for data service which will help.
b4d5h0t said:
Very interesting thank you for the detailed explanation and tips. Im gonna remove my task killer and try watchdog if i can, to keep an eye on my cpu. I am also going to look into rooting my phone, its just the constant android updates and horror storys of rooted phones with removed bloatware bricking after OTA thats putting me off.
I can understand how having an app in memory ready to go keeps your phone quick (in the same way a cookie in your browser cache makes a page load faster?) but if the app is monitoring data or connecting to the net then they are using some cpu and need to be terminated or stopped from starting. It looks like the only way to do this is to root and then as said in your post ill beable to stop them starting up in the first place.
Thanks again for your time and info
Sent from my R800i using XDA App
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You may also want to try a minifree manager like autokiller in the market. Rather that acting like a task killer, it can edit androids built in process manager you can change how much ram is allocated to background and foregrounds apps and also how much memory android cache's, the cache is the minium amount of ram that android allows to be free, you could set it to 150mb if you wanted, then android will never let your free ram go lower than 150mb.
Sent from my R800i using Tapatalk
Nice one ill look into it
Sent from my R800i using XDA App
Just let Android manage itself, My Xperia play will last an entire day with a lot of use such as wifi, Bluetooth and other things.
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
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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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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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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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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