Task killer apps " THE TRUTH"

[Stangs55]

Just my 2 pennies...but I've found my Droid to perform noticeably faster with Advanced Task Killer uninstalled. This was one of the first apps I put on my phone to help KEEP it running quickly, but I have been very unhappy with the slow performance. I've gone through multiple reboots and systematic installing/uninstalling of apps until I hit upon the least likely culprit, ATK. After removing it completely, I've noticed a significant difference in respect to keyboard lag, UI refreshing, and possibly battery life.

This is by no means an absolute truth, but I'm curious if anyone else has seen this?

Thanks.

 

[gizbug]

Found this to be true on mine too. Then I did some reading, and got out of the "Windows OS" mindset....and realized this isn't a windows OS, and a program like Task Killer is really not needed at all.

 

[docprego]

I have to say I found the same to be true. Uninstalled it yesterday and everything is running great. IMO the Droid has the horsepower to run Android as the developers intended it to be.

 

[ajm144k]

yep docprego's right. there really is no need to have a task killing app. linux systems are made to handle memory different than typical windows does, which is what the majority of people are familiar with, and makes us want to kill every single background process.

ive been running completely fine without any task killer. i've found that changing settings like window animations (settings > sound & display > animation) will have a better, more effective effect on speed.

 

[vzwdroidtech]

Just my 2 pennies...but I've found my Droid to perform noticeably faster with Advanced Task Killer uninstalled. This was one of the first apps I put on my phone to help KEEP it running quickly, but I have been very unhappy with the slow performance. I've gone through multiple reboots and systematic installing/uninstalling of apps until I hit upon the least likely culprit, ATK. After removing it completely, I've noticed a significant difference in respect to keyboard lag, UI refreshing, and possibly battery life.

This is by no means an absolute truth, but I'm curious if anyone else has seen this?

Thanks.

Makes sense.. Gonna try it and see.

 

[CRPercodani]

EXACTLY! I tried telling a lot of new Android users this when the DROID came out but everyone was so use to WinMo/Blackberry/iPhone and thought it would help to always kill tasks. Android is a Linux based OS and it is designed to allocate memory properly and when a app isn't in use it shouldn't be using any. The only time you might need to kill a task/app is if the developer wrote it very poorly, and even then you can just go to menu>settings>applications>running services and close them from there. I had a G1 for about 6 months before I got the DROID so I knew about this.

 

[Telexen]

I'm going to try it just to see if it gets any faster...but I don't buy into the idea that having applications constantly running in the background has no effect on battery life. Sure I don't have to worry about it running out of memory, but even a small boost in battery life is worth killing completely unnecessary tasks before I put my phone back in my pocket.

 

[syntrix]

This might explain why I have NO problems on my 39/09

I've never installed this app, nor have I ever had a need too!

 

[ajm144k]

I'm going to try it just to see if it gets any faster...but I don't buy into the idea that having applications constantly running in the background has no effect on battery life. Sure I don't have to worry about it running out of memory, but even a small boost in battery life is worth killing completely unnecessary tasks before I put my phone back in my pocket.

your phone just turns on many of the processes anyways. so i mean, technically youre just having your phone do a couple extra steps by killing the app then having to start it right back up.

but to each his own.

 

[Mixmaster300]

This is a great forum, I have learned a lot here. The Droid is my first smart phone and like others one of the first apps I installed was Advanced Task Killer. It is now gone, thanks!

 

[allanlaw]

This is a great forum, I have learned a lot here. The Droid is my first smart phone and like others one of the first apps I installed was Advanced Task Killer. It is now gone, thanks!

My Droid has crashed a couple of times in the past 2 days, so just in case, I've made ATK disappear. BTW a reset by removing the battery cured the crash.

 

[Nicks88]

I deleted, restarted, and have noticed a considerable difference. I deleted my EStrongs file manager as well.

 

[Xomox]

If you're curious if specific programs are slowing you down -- actually using the CPU in the background -- check out a program called TaskManager (from the Market.) It will show you exactly how much CPU each process is using, so you can see what's misbehaving on slowdowns. Just be sure to close it (Options key -> Quit) when you're done, as it consumes a good amount of CPU itself.

 

[Pointcover]

I love this forum! Its so hard to get out of that mentality of shutting down applications. Thanks for all the info!

 

[jdella681]

Lol its funny. I was contemplating removing any kind of task killing prog from my phn (3rd party of course) because I just wanna see what would happen.. just uninstalled

 

[sohc sti]

ATK was the first thing I installed on my droid. I also wasn't getting automatic e-mail notifications either. As soon as I deleted ATK, the e-mails started flowing. Lol.

 

[Zerophi]

This is not windows.
it doesn't matter how much stuff is running in the background your phone wont slow down. Task killer interferes with automatic updates and email.

 

[Roroco]

Thank you... Thank you all. Good stuff in this thread.

 

[ricktssf]

i make sure that the advanced app killer is also killed when I use this app... which is often.

I am very happy with the speed and battery life... even after I install this app. I did not notice a difference. maybe thats becaue I kill when I use it.

 

[johnnybirdman]

Funny, as I was getting my Droid replaced today (random reboots even with no apps loaded) I heard a VZW rep. talking to another customer about this very same task killing program as a 'necessary' program to download from the market if they bought the droid. I laughed.
I haven't installed any task killers and don't plan to.
J.

 

[Zerophi]

Task killer apps are not needed with android operating system.

Yes there are going to be alot of things running in the background, *** But there not using resources like windows would***

Task killer apps will stop emails from updating and it will slow applications because they have been turned off.

If you have OCD and you want to constantly close programs because it's just killing you to know there in the background then go right ahead and download one of the task killer apps and enjoy, but it's a waste of time.

 

[billd]

Just curious but what do you base this upon?

How do you know that it's not using resources?

 

[koticphreak]

Hmm, interesting theory... too bad my available memory before and after closing apps totally debunks it. sorry.

 

[Zerophi]

Ive had about 5 different people tell me that Android is very similar to Linux and it uses resources differently than window, the apps show up as running but it's in stand by( not slowing down the OS),

If you dont' believe me spend a whole day using Droid with Task Killer installed and killing everything like I did. and then try it for a day without Task killer. You'll find out that your Droid emails get through and battery life hasn't changed one bit.

Battery life is the key with cell phones, more apps running = shorter battery life.

I tested my phone with and without killing apps and it didn't make any difference with battery life.

 

[johnlgalt]

The reason I have ATM installed is simple - I have a lot of stuff that I have downloaded onto my phone, and after a while of using my battery is not the on complaining - I am - even with A2's *nix like memory use, it can only do so much - when you have stuff running, you have stuff running. I like killing things like Twidroid, GMail, and the likes when I am in class so I don't get an accidental notification (even though I have them turned off at appropriate times using locale) if I do not need them, saving my sync cycles for when I truly do need them.