Many people on the internet believe that we never landed on the moon.
But we did.
My first college physics textbook (nod to Hadron, H&R of course lol) started each chapter with an interesting quote. My favorite begins -
There is no democracy in physics. We can't vote (on an idea, it has to be tested).
Words to live by.
I could get all high horsey and explain that I've actually written operating systems so my vote counts more than all of those others combined.
But that would be wrong. That would just be a different kind of voting.
Germany adopted a new ideology in the first half of the 20th century - by an overwhelming vote.
America elected Nixon by a landslide and he claimed he wasn't lying even after it all came unraveling.
Now - and this is most important - I'm not inviting political comments. If anyone doesn't like I just said, drop me a line privately and I'll retract it.
I am saying that no matter the popularity - the vote as I call it - that doesn't matter when it comes to physical systems.
Just like vehicles we rode to the moon, your phone is a physical system.
There is no democracy in smartphones. We can't vote on task killers and ram sweepers, we have to test them, believe the evidence and understand it.
Just running the task killer or ram sweeper is not testing. There is no independent check.
My second big post tells you how to run the procedure for yourself and tells you exactly what tools you need.
My method uses two independent monitoring tools to evaluate what the automatic task killer really did. You can use the method on Battery Doctor or anything else making the same outrageous claims.
The results are conclusive and very clear.
Two independent monitors disagree with the snake oil when it says that a lot of apps are running. They are not. You can see the proof for yourself.
That's part one of the con game debunked.
The snake oil claims to improve performance.
Both monitors will independently agree that the snake oil does the opposite. It degrades it.
Part two of the con is debunked.
Debunking part three of the con appeals to your common sense - once you have two independent monitors prove that the snake oil lied about the apps that were running and prove that it lied in its claims to improve performance, are you really going to believe a score that it gives you as so-called proof that it helped? I hope not.
Look at System Panel - the free version will tell you that some of those "offending" apps are actually cached.
What that means -
First, an app goes to sleep. That's not a concept, sleep is a defined running state. The app is in the background, ready to go when you need it - but it is consuming zero power.
Next comes cached. If an app sleeps long enough, Android will take a really tiny snapshot of its state - a few dozen bytes - and get rid of the rest of it. Now that app is available on a moment and half's notice. It takes no power and it takes a few bytes of ram - even if the app itself is megabytes, it won't be in ram. Android has seen to that.
And if it's an app you run often, don't be surprised to find the app cached after you boot your phone and haven't done anything yet. Android is not stupid, it remembers.
Both sleeping and cached apps are said to be hibernating.
Task killers identify them as running - they're not. Then they claim to kill them. They do not. Then they claim performance increases. It can not. Hibernating apps are not running.
Ram cleaners claim the same. They decode a few dozen bytes of cached apps that are not in memory, calculate what the ram usage would be if they were, erase a few dozen bytes and then claim to clean up all of that ram - that might get used in the future. Maybe. If you launch a cached app. They don't clean megabytes - they clean a few bytes and lie.
Android is not stupid, so it reloads the managed data - the automatic snake oil sees it and the cycle repeats.
You go and check, and it lies about all the good it does you.
And at that point, you're either being fed recurring ads, or a sales pitch to go pro and pay for the lies, or it's data mining your personal info. Sometimes all of the above.
All at a fat profit margin for the dev, for an app that lies and convinces you with pretty eye candy. (I gotta hand it to Battery Doctor - it's downright gorgeous. So was the hooker I saw downtown last weekend standing on the corner but I digress.
)
Here's your cookbook.
Leave Android alone.
If and only if you really need to check something, run one of the three monitors mentioned in this thread, and only to find and get rid of bad apps. That you do by hand. By uninstalling and replacing.
Because those apps that you need a cookbook to kill are not running and you've been lied to.
You can prove it yourself if you don't want to take my word for it. I've shown you how.
In parting, I want you to remember what Abraham Lincoln said - "Don't believe everything you read on the internet, unless it's EarlyMon and friends explaining how Android works."
