My take on the task killer debate

[VanDums]

I received 2.1 last weekend and put my task killer right back on my desktop. I had been using is religiously for months. I would kill tasks several times a day because the phone seemed to get laggy so quickly. After reading some of the older articles on the subject I decided to uninstall it and give it a try. What I have found in the last two days is that my Eris has run flawlessly without the task killer. No lag that I can think of. Basically what it comes down too is it seems the phone doesn't know it is low on memory or that is should lag unless the task killer tells it that it is. I am going to keep the task killer off unless I run into any problems in the future.

 

[BlazeD OnE]

This has been beaten to DEATH here. Everyone has there own opinion's, and are entitled to them. Everyone use's their phones in different manners throughout each different day. I personally agree task killers are friggin pointless and can't stand to read another person say they need it. But hey in their mind they do.. I just don't see what the point of going over it and over it again with new threads. Please let's just use the info that has been given to us, and decide on our own. As I said before everyone has their own opinion, and that being said as a whole of Android Eris users, it will never be 100% agreed upon.

 

[VanDums]

Glad you felt the need to reply then. You do realize if you hadn't this thread would be on page 5 and I would have gotten the point. Damn thread Nazis.

 

[Tooleman694]

If task killers are not important, then I bet you never use task manager in MS windows right?? And you leave all over applications open all day on your computer and never close out..

 

[MrChips]

If task killers are not important, then I bet you never use task manager in MS windows right?? And you leave all over applications open all day on your computer and never close out..

I used to use Windows task manager a lot more than I do now - the OS has matured a great deal.

I leave dozens of apps open on my computer for many days at a time. It is faster than reopening them and finding my place on the document/program/workflow again.

Oh - and I too stopped the task killer lunacy on my Eris too. The memory I freed would always get reallocated and used again because that is what a modern operating system does - cache everything it can to use the memory that is just sitting there.

 

[truelove79]

If task killers are not important, then I bet you never use task manager in MS windows right?? And you leave all over applications open all day on your computer and never close out..

Ummm, yeah, I actually do this. At work on a Windows XP machine I run dozens of apps and leave them open all week. All I do is lock my machine when I leave for the day. Developers do this all the time. Do people seriously close their programs when they're done with them on Windows? If you're running a good OS like XP or 7, there's no need.

And even if I didn't, Windows does not equal Linux (Android), memory management is completely different, so this is a useless argument. The only reason this is possible on a Windows machine is because modern computers have TONS of RAM.

cache everything it can to use the memory that is just sitting there.

Exactly, what's the point of the RAM if it's not being used. Eris users that use task killers insist on more RAM, but what's the point if you just keep freeing it up anyway. Let the OS use it how it wants like it's supposed to.

 

[Tooleman694]

If im not using an app for the next few hours, of course I shut them down.. I like all my performance gauges I have monitoring my system to be showing very little resource use as possible to keep my machine at its best..

 

[truelove79]

I like all my performance gauges I have monitoring my system to be showing very little resource use as possible to keep my machine at its best..

That simply doesn't make sense. It's a psychological barrier you have to get over. Why have all that power available if you're not going to use it? Why do you equate no programs running and no resources being used with running at it's best. You do realize that servers run 24 hours per day sometimes at full capacity. It's a computer, that's what it's designed to do.

If an app (whether on Android or Windows) isn't doing anything, it's not going to consume CPU time anyway, so it's not hurting anything, it just sits in RAM. I think people get confused with CPU resources and RAM use. RAM is there to be used. The more stuff that sits in RAM, the faster your computer can open apps and work, until you hit the limit and it has to swap out the page file, then that's a different story. It's the CPU resources consumed that gets you in trouble. If you're railing your CPU to 100%, that's when you have to sit and wait for it to free up before you computer will start responding again. But an app just sitting in RAM not doing anything isn't going to do any harm. The only thing a task killer does is remove it from RAM, which is just going to filled up when the app starts again. And if it doesn't start again, then you have more free RAM for.......well nothing. Why does that make things faster? If the RAM is sitting there with nothing in it, why not fill it with something, especially if that something is an app that you use often. If it's an app that you don't use often, Android will kill it eventually anyway.

I'm not saying it's a perfect system, and the Eris can be a pain sometimes. But computers are a different beast these days. They have so much power and resources available to them. You don't have to close all your apps and shut off the power every night like my in-laws still insist on doing. When you're done with your computer, just walk away. And with your phone, no need to close things down, just hit the power button and shove it in your pocket.

 

[Demache]

I can run several tabs of Google Chrome, Winamp, and PhotoShop CS4 on a 7 year old computer with only 1 GB of RAM. As long as you dont let the RAM get too low it works perfectly fine for a Celeron system.

Android is not Windows, which many people fail to realize. Somebody that develops apps for the iphone OS said to me that unused RAM is wasted RAM. And they have a good point. Rellocation for RAM my make it lag a bit, but doesn't it make the advantage of having a task killer effectively moot since you have to waste time killing apps anyway which also takes up system resouces?

 

[truelove79]

...unused RAM is wasted RAM.

Perfectly said! You summed up what I was trying to say in 5 words.

 

[Tooleman694]

If even one of my servers hits full capacity for 5 minutes, my monitoring systems will make my phone explode with text messages warning me.. 20 minutes and I get a nice phone call from a pissed off person..

Not fun being dragged into a conference call at 2am, because you didnt wake up to the pages lol..

 

[truelove79]

If even one of my servers hits full capacity for 5 minutes, my monitoring systems will make my phone explode with text messages warning me.. 20 minutes and I get a nice phone call from a pissed off person..

Not fun being dragged into a conference call at 2am, because you didnt wake up to the pages lol..

Hehe, so I was exaggerating a bit. But you know what I mean.

 

[Caddyman]

I Run lots if programs on my home pc, never closer them, they stay open for months...literally

 

[smoked_toast]

And the epic saga continues..

 

[Tooleman694]

Unused ram is a beautiful thing..

 

[truelove79]

Unused ram is a beautiful thing..

You could make yourself some money and remove the unused sticks and sell them, or just not buy them in the first place.

And the epic saga continues..

It's a discussion forum right?

 

[Tooleman694]

Nope I need a ton of ram, I use a lot of virtual machines for work related stuff..

 

[OfTheDamned]

I like the unused ram is wasted ram view. It is like having an amazing sports car that you never drive (had to go the guy route ).

 

[Tooleman694]

I remember back a few years ago I build a new Windows machine, dropped 4 gigs of ram into the thing and XP would only see 3 gigs..

Microsoft thought they would be cute and limit the OS, that really ticked me off.. Thank God in 64 bit they removed that bull crap..

 

[Demache]

I remember back a few years ago I build a new Windows machine, dropped 4 gigs of ram into the thing and XP would only see 3 gigs..

Microsoft thought they would be cute and limit the OS, that really ticked me off.. Thank God in 64 bit they removed that bull crap..

That's not really Microsofts fault. No 32 bit OS can see more than 3 GB of RAM without PAE. The most popular reason to get 64 bit is because it doesn't have that RAM limitation. At least until we reach 128 GB.

 

[Tooleman694]

PAE been available since when? Mid 90s? XP came out when?

Yeah its not Microsofts fault lol..

Had to dual boot my XP machine to 32 bit Linux to use that ram..

 

[Demache]

PAE been available since when? Mid 90s? XP came out when?

Yeah its not Microsofts fault lol..

Had to dual boot my XP machine to 32 bit Linux to use that ram..

It's still not Microsofts fault that 32 bit can't see more RAM. Why would they incorporate PAE into an consumer OS when most consumer Pc's would never need it when it was released. They didn't expect it to be one of the most used OS's that far after its release. But I'm sorry that it inconvenient that you didn't do your research and bought 4GB of RAM for an OS that has been well known to only support 3.

 

[Tooleman694]

I guess I just didnt think about it, I had Linux Servers and Windows Servers running way more then 4 gig way before then.. so I just figured XP would do it too..

Looking back, it appears Linux was supporting this in the late 90s.. And Windows picked up on Server 2000..

 

[hrbib21]

I use a task killer and you can't stop me. Na nanny boo boo...

 

[cableguynoe]

I use a task killer and you can't stop me. Na nanny boo boo...

lol...

I used a task killer initially like most here, i think.
But after reading the comments here about them... it makes perfect sense.
If it was really "required" like some have said (i think i remember a verizon tech saying that in here)
then why wouldn't a task killer come already pre installed? Why would they have to tell you at Verizon to install it after you activate your phone?
Doesn't make sense.
Every PC I ever bought came with a pre installed anti virus... because Microsoft knows it's needed...