• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Putting to rest the myths about Task Killers/RAM Optimizers and the like

AppleUser

Android Enthusiast
Oct 26, 2011
683
68
**Mod Note**:
What started out as a discussion for DU Speed Booster (available in the PlayStore) evolved into a very informative discussion about Task Killers, Ram discussion, killing apps and the like.
As a result, the thread is now stuck here, as this is a very good thread about them ;)
So in a roundabout way, thanks to @AppleUser for starting this thread :)
We also have another thread about Android Task killers here (a few years old, but still excellent nonetheless).
Also, some shortcuts to helpful posts in this thread:
http://androidforums.com/threads/pu...-optimizers-and-the-like.896663/#post-6858083
http://androidforums.com/threads/pu...-optimizers-and-the-like.896663/#post-6859379
http://androidforums.com/threads/pu...izers-and-the-like.896663/page-2#post-6860024


Of all the apps which kill background apps, stop auto-starts, and empty caches, DU Speed Booster seems to be the best. Nice interface, works quickly, on repeat use during the same power up it documents improvement, and other apps rarely find issues after just one run of DUSB. However, Battery Doctor (or some other app) put up a flag indicating that DU Speed Booster (DUSB) has used 50% of the power in the antecedent hour. So is DUSB not worth using ? Did it only consume such power during the "cleaning" ?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
You are not supposed to need to manually close apps, use task killers or worry about RAM, running processes, etc.

And I don't. I let Android handle everything automatically as intended. All of our devices run smoothly, reliably and battery drain is fine. We just use them.

Now, if an app is poorly coded, you're running an old, outdated version of Android or a low-spec device all may not be so nice. But on reasonably capable hardware and Android 4 or above, trying to micromanage operation is often counterproductive or worse. Task killers are particularly evil.

DUSB is simply snake oil. Worse than worthless, it's eating your battery. Uninstall it!
 
Upvote 0
Really. Clean Master and DUSB really seem to help. Why are they rated so highly in the Play Store ? Why are there so many downloads ?
My first Android, Sprint wouldn't let me leave the store without installing a task killer and it was on the Sprint support site - but no more.

They're popular because people don't get Linux and try to relate Android to Windows, iOS and BlackBerry.

I used to believe in them until I learned.

They all suck. They're all snake oil.

Sometimes an app goes South so you clear its cache - just like and for the same reason you clear cache on a browser.

If you can't find the bad one - fine - use Clean Master and clear them all if your Android doesn't include that. (But don't use Clean Master for anything else.)

Or - backup (Helium is good), factory data reset, and restore the backup.

But your caches - they'll start rebuilding - at a battery and performance cost - as soon as you start using the apps.

Those apps hogging memory, according to most all task managers?

They're not there.

They're hibernating in a cached state, doing nothing. Kill them and get the opposite of what you expect - Android will run them before you know it trying to sort out the state it was managing just fine on its own.

Task killers, battery helpers and cleaners are like drugs.

The more you use them, the more you have to use them.

While believing it's all ok.
 
Upvote 0
Really. Clean Master and DUSB really seem to help. Why are they rated so highly in the Play Store ? Why are there so many downloads ?

The main reason why these types of apps do well is because of people ignorance in thinking they are actually accomplishing something when they are not. I've said it before and I will say it again. Memory is not something you need to worry about. Android does a much better job then you can. The concern should go to the CPU and amount of if an app uses. This is what slows down the device not a full memory bank but a very clogged CPU.
 
Upvote 0
This comes up over and over again, and I rely on the people like you and the mods here with much more experience than I have to learn about these things, but I do have just one question. How can we find out if we have a badly coded app that is sucking too much juice if Task Killers aren't the way to go?
You are not supposed to need to manually close apps, use task killers or worry about RAM, running processes, etc.

And I don't. I let Android handle everything automatically as intended. All of our devices run smoothly, reliably and battery drain is fine. We just use them.

Now, if an app is poorly coded, you're running an old, outdated version of Android or a low-spec device all may not be so nice. But on reasonably capable hardware and Android 4 or above, trying to micromanage operation is often counterproductive or worse. Task killers are particularly evil.

DUSB is simply snake oil. Worse than worthless, it's eating your battery. Uninstall it!
 
Upvote 0
This comes up over and over again, and I rely on the people like you and the mods here with much more experience than I have to learn about these things, but I do have just one question. How can we find out if we have a badly coded app that is sucking too much juice if Task Killers aren't the way to go?
You're happy, things work.

You get some new apps or some updates and suddenly your battery drains faster than before.

Also try - GSam Battery Monitor.
 
Upvote 0
Really. Clean Master and DUSB really seem to help. Why are they rated so highly in the Play Store ? Why are there so many downloads ?

You should also be aware that it has have your precise GPS location, access to all your private information, accounts, contacts, etc, send SMS, dial phone numbers, and phones home to a server in Beijing, China. That's why it's "free". I suspect many people don't pay much attention to permissions when they install these spyware snake oil products.
 
Upvote 0
Is GSam Battery Monitor also snake oil ?
It's simply a monitoring app. It details which apps are consuming power/causing wake locks, etc. It does not kill tasks or make any claims to "boost speed by 80% and cut battery drain in half". So no. It's not snake oil :)
 
Upvote 0
It's simply a monitoring app. It details which apps are consuming power/causing wake locks, etc. It does not kill tasks or make any claims to "boost speed by 80% and cut battery drain in half". So no. It's not snake oil :)
And it's great at uncovering if power draw is going more to apps or to the phone radios.

A lot of Android is constantly monitoring itself - GSam just makes the information readable.

Good stuff. :)
 
Upvote 0
you dont.these offenders prolly are hibernating is the point.these snake oil apps make you think they are draining power when in fact they are dormant most of them.
something i found that works actually is something flashable not necesarrily an app.try looking up pure performance x golden edition and pure graphics hd rendering version.if you have twrp or cwm just flash these two and should be all you need.this was originally made for jellybean but ive had it work in kitkat ports too.this increases life speed and alot of other stuff without installing 50 million things.its basically a collab flash of all the best speed tweak scripts etc out there famous on xda and i think lifehacker has praised it as well.its worth it.
i do other stuff as well to get better results but i dunno how much you can handle.things i do can make or break devices if your not careful,so id just stick with those flashables ;)

also most antiviruses are sucking you dry too.unless you install things not in the google play store your very unlikely to get a virus anyways.more people are interested in hacking windows than androids.just dont install anything not trusted by google apk wise and you should be fine.also use only trusted scripts,look at reveiws.they help
 
Upvote 0
The best thing I have found to stop apps from draining my battery is removal. All these apps that have fooled the average user into thinking they are helping when in fact they are not and some if not most are some sort of secret agent (to me this sounds so much kewler than spyware :p ) This is why we are flooded with mechanics because people don't take the time to learn how to properly use the machines they depend on.
 
Upvote 0
When the camera is started, Battery Doctor sends up a flag that 20 background processes or apps have been killed by Battery Doctor.
I don't intend to believe an app identified as snake oil and go from there.

Instead, I'm going to leave you with the following. What you do with the information is your business.


http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Negative_proof

We can't seem to establish for you that the Battery Doctor is snake oil - therefore you believe what it tells you.

I could go into the details of teaching process monitoring in Android but you can do that yourself by googling "man ps" and "man top" to get the Linux user manual pages' definition, then run those commands in Terminal Emulator and send the output to a file for your forensic study.

Then you'll going to see all of the helper processes that Android is running and I suspect that at that point, we're going to be in to a full lesson on how *nix operating systems work.

We'll be well past your firsthand discovery that you were told the truth in the first place - that the app in question is a bunch of bullshit - and on to operating system theory. I took years to learn it properly.

We don't have time for all that so I've selected some high points.

Apps in Android run with intents.

Yes. Sometimes when you wake up one app - like your contacts - a signal occurs that triggers other apps - like the dialer or or your sms app - to get on deck so you don't have to wait for a cold launch.

Those signals are called intents. They're tightly managed and well controlled.

And outside of you tapping the screen or the foreground app calling for a background service, it's the only way that Android wakes up and runs things. (Apart from things like email that sleep, wake up to sync, sleep, wake up to sync, etc etc.)

Unless you're the geniuses at Battery Doctor who have discovered that omg pwnies, a camera can wake up 20 foreground apps and processes and omg only Battery Doctor can save you.

So rather than me continue to bicker about this, how about you look at each of those 20 apps and figure out how you can access each one from the camera.

The alternative to Battery Doctor NOT being snake oil lies in the proof that the many hundreds of man-years of system design and development leading to how Android works is just all nonsense.

http://www.vogella.com/tutorials/AndroidIntent/article.html

https://developer.android.com/tools/debugging/debugging-memory.html

https://developer.android.com/training/articles/memory.html

And after you've digested that, discover that Android already has a very sophisticated task killer whose collective developers make the creators of snake oil apps appear to be the brain damaged monkeys that they are -

http://ajqi.com/android-memory-management-and-its-effects-on-multi-tasking/

But if you want to believe that Battery Doctor is killing 20 apps every time you launch your camera, great. Run it. Let it screw with the entire operating system. Why not.

And the next time you believe what the snake oil tells you, just remember that you were warned -

That crap is like drugs. The more you use it, the more you need to.

All the while being convinced that it's a good thing.

Oddly, we don't download and use task killers on desktop Linux. Somehow, we all believe that the operating system works.

But not when you put it on a phone. Gosh no. /sarcasm


You want to believe what Battery Doctor is telling you - fine, great. Run it. It's screwing with the operating system and convincing you that the operating system doesn't actually work but if you like it, run it.

edit/ps - I have a habit of oversimplifying intents. Scary alien has a habit of posting and explaining it properly and I appreciate that very much.

Droid-den had a great write-up on this, but evidently, the site is down or le3ky ended it.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
This is a bit off subject, but since the original post was about battery drain I think it's still relevant and not worth opening a new thread for. Anyways, I have a no brand Chinese phone that has the worst battery performance ever! I can take it off the charger at 99% and it will drop to 33% in one huge chunk, nothing in between. I can put it on the charger immediately and it goes back to 99% in five minutes. The battery is obviously total garbage, but I want to know if the percentages that Android itself gives me on the battery are reliable and "true" or just as flawed as the battery itself???
 
Upvote 0

BEST TECH IN 2023

We've been tracking upcoming products and ranking the best tech since 2007. Thanks for trusting our opinion: we get rewarded through affiliate links that earn us a commission and we invite you to learn more about us.

Smartphones