Task Killer---Yes or No ?

[DevHead]

Yes. Just do it!

 

[palomosan]

Well I've been using Advance Task Killer ever since I got my Droid last year and now that I have the Dinc, I continue to use it.

However some people may not know how to use it and it might cause problems...
Like for example there's a list that you make yourself of ignore apps that you wouldn't want the TK to kill and there's also a kill by time mode, so you have to know what you doing.

I think they help if you know what you're doing.

 

[euph_22]

Here is a good primer on how Android ACTUALLY multitasks.

YouTube - Androidology - Part 2 of 3 - Application Lifecycle

 

[sr3tlaw]

good shit.

Here is a good primer on how Android ACTUALLY multitasks.

YouTube - Androidology - Part 2 of 3 - Application Lifecycle

 

[Crashumbc]

I called Verizon about another matter and told them the only gripe I had with the DInc is that it killed the battery fast. He recommended that I install ATK.
I was in a local Verizon store and told the dude in there that the battery drained pretty fast and HE TOO recommended that I install ATK.
I was in a BestBuy in the phone department getting an Invisible Shield for my DInc and HE TOO recommended that I install ATK.... SO, I installed ATK.
My experience has been really good! I have it kill non-system apps every 30 minutes with no adverse effects and my battery life has improved about 30% since then.

After reading through this thread though, I have stopped ATK from running in the background and starting automatically, and have purchased/installed System Panel and will see how it compares.

please repeat the following 1000 thousand times.

NEVER EVER TRUST SOMEONE TRYING TO SELL YOU SOMETHING.

This goes for anything is life, cars, houses, toilet paper, etc.

always get or confirm information from a 3rd party source.


In all three of those cases, the people you were talking to have very little direct knowledge of the phone, their just repeating what they've been told. ( keep in mind it is MUCH easier[cheaper] to have support personal, install a TK'er then to find the cause of the issue)

Automatic Task Killer's are BAD. At the VERY best all they do is bandaid a problem, they don't fix the problem. (i.e. you have a leak in your car tire and instead of fixing the tire you just stop at the gas station every morning and fill it up).

the only time you really should be killing an app. is, if it has a problem but you still want to use it while you wait (hopefully) for the developer to fix the issue. Or (and this really shouldn't happen often) there was a glitch or crash. Like someone said earlier sometimes programs don't respond well if interrupted by the phone ringing.

 

[AngryDeadHorse]

Task Killers FTW!

Epic fail for those not using them.

Killing Apps = Better Phone

Its as simple as that.

 

[euph_22]

Task Killers FTW!

Epic fail for those not using them.

Killing Apps = Better Phone

Its as simple as that.

Constantly having apps=worse battery life+worse performance
Killing system processes=unstable OS
High memory utilization=happy android

Seems pretty simple to me.

 

[AngryDeadHorse]

Constantly having apps=worse battery life+worse performance
Killing system processes=unstable OS
High memory utilization=happy android

Seems pretty simple to me.

Too Many Processes = Slow Phone

Slow phone * Task Killer / 0 = Pure Blazing Epic Phone Speed = FTW!!!!!1!

 

[adrynalyne]

Too Many Active Processes = Slow Phone

Slow phone * Task Killer / 0 = Pure Blazing Epic Phone Speed = FTW!!!!!1!

Fixed that for ya.

 

[makewayhomer]

here is what I don't understand about the anti-task killer crowd.

my battery was just at 88%. I used ATK to kill everything, including ATK.

a few minutes later, my battery is still at 88%

so, why was this such a bad thing for me to do? how did this kill more battery than if I hadn't used it?

if there was a negative effect, it is barely noticable

 

[adrynalyne]

Had you left those processes running, you would still be at 88% too.

The ones that keep restarting, it adds up as the cpu has to keep ramping up and down, up and down.

Think of it like stop and go traffic vs. highway driving. Which one uses more gas? In the first few minutes, you don't see your fuel level drop right?

However, at the end of the day...you tell me.

 

[makewayhomer]

the trouble is that I'm never quit sure if I have a runaway website refreshing itself, or be sure that all my apps stopped, both of which could potentially crush the battery. so, I'm NOT positive it would still be at 88%

so it's easier to kill them all, and the downside is extremely limited. after restarting everything I had running, and it sitting here for a few minutes, I am at 87%

if 1% battery death is the downside to task killers, and being 100% sure nothing bad is going on the background, that sounds great to me

 

[adrynalyne]

Well, unless you can look at the bigger picture, you will never see the downside of misusing a task manager. Its not something you learn overnight, it takes some time with the OS and learning what works and what doesn't.

I posted a general primer earlier in this thread on proper use.

 

[NightAngel79]

repost bump

Ok, to explain my position, that goes counter to everyone else here!


A lot (most) people blindly kill with a task killer, and many of these processes either restart on their own, or break other things due to other apps relying on those dependencies. This ends up slowing down the phone and hurting stability.

Someone who has taken the time to watch these processes and apps, and know what restarts, and what depends on what, will kill apps that have no business idling in the background for various reasons. This takes a lot of time, patience, and trial and error to get down what can be safely nuked and what should be ignored.

Most common processes for a phone:
Email
messaging
clock
alarm
voice dialer
Sense anything!
phone!

These should be ignored. They are usually well coded, and well behaved.

Services should not be stopped.

Why stop any app? Some don't idle correctly, hogging ram, and more importantly, cpu time. This WILL slow down the phone and cause the battery to drain at a breakneck speed. You have a choice. Uninstall said application, or end it.

Apps that have done this to me:

Browsers
Streaming players
Beautiful Widgets (hanging gps)

These are just a couple off the top of my head that I recall.

If you are using Sense, and have Launcher Pro installed (or Plus which I have), why does it need to be running in the background, even in idle? Answer: It doesn't. Tip: NEVER use an auto task killing app, or one that runs in the bakground. Its counterproductive.

See why its not an easy answer? If you don't know what you are doing, its better to trust your resources to the Android gods.

My advice:
Get a simple app called Multi Task Manager.
MultiTask Manager - Android app on AppBrain

Change the god awful background, set the margin to 5, do NOT enable services, and map it to your search soft key. Simply long hold search and set it to multi task manager.

Long press will end an app. Short Press will switch to it. Scroll by swiping.

Learn what to ignore, as you can set it in the list.

A good place to start:


Most common processes for a phone:
Email
messaging
clock
alarm
voice dialer
Sense anything!
phone!

If you want to go further with this, purchase autostarts from the market. Root your phone and you can set what doesn't start on certain events. It also shows you what WILL startup during certain events, which is a good lesson.


Signed,

Me.

Never crashes, never has battery issues, never has slowdowns.

Your mileage may vary, and I am more than certain most will disagree with me.

PS--If Android was so perfect at all that it does, then we would never need OS bugfixes.

No OS is perfect, and therefore, amendments must be made to statements like, Android does a superior job of managing resources. True, but NOT always true.

 

[imtoomuch]

If I relied on VZW, or the Turd Squad for tech support of any kind, I would turn in my man card and hang my head in shame.

Go on and pound your nerdy chest...

I called Verizon to activate my phone and had issues. The lady also told me to download ATK. I checked it out, but didn't keep it.

 

[Makavetis]

can we make this into a poll? id love to see the overall consensus

 

[adrynalyne]

Nerdy chest?

Just because I know what the hell I am doing ( and they usually do not) doesn't make me a nerd.

I don't call that nerdy, I call that well informed.

 

[makewayhomer]

Well, unless you can look at the bigger picture, you will never see the downside of misusing a task manager. Its not something you learn overnight, it takes some time with the OS and learning what works and what doesn't.

I posted a general primer earlier in this thread on proper use.

yeah, I would be willing to say you're right. learning to use the phone as intended is probably best

it's just that I think the evils of using ATK have been overblown...from reading some people you would think think using it greatly reduces battery life. if anything in my experience, the effect is extremely minor

 

[adrynalyne]

Well, some of the folks who are so dead set against it aren't looking at the bigger picture either--some of these task killers are more dangerous than others.

Dangerous to phone stability and battery life, anyway.

If someone is not using an automatic task killer, they are already better off than 2/3 of the folks out there using task killers.

 

[makewayhomer]

yeah, I guess some are bad. ATK afaik doesn't stop services, only apps. and it's easy enough ignore things I use a lot so they aren't constantly closing and restarting. so I don't think I'm causing a lot of unneeded cpu usage

 

[gruss]

here is what I don't understand about the anti-task killer crowd.

Most of the "anti task killer" people as you say just do not agree with the knee jerk reaction of "my battery sucks so I kill everything every 15 minutes" crowd. I don't use ATK or anything to automatically kill stuff, but I like to download crap and much of the software is poorly written and I'm not afraid to kill off apps when necessary. an app like sys panel is helpful in ID'ing those apps. I will then uninstall those bad apples unless its useful, then I'll use it and kill it when I'm done, email the dev and say hey fix the "whatever issue" and I'll buy it.

Having ATK RUNNING killing apps is counterproductive. Having a way to kill poorly coded software is ok.
My wife has an Eris, not a powerhouse and never ran ATK. battery life was always ok but she isnt a power user, if she installed something then didnt like what her phone was doing she would uninstall that app and move on...her Eris still runs like a champ bone stock loaded with tons of apps, but obviously she was patient enough to weed out the buggy ones. My phone on the other hand is a disaster sometimes cause I'll change so many things at once it takes forever to figure out what I screwed up. I could run ATK as a band aid but that wouldnt solve the problem. Right now its stable and the battery is fine, who knows what I'll do to it today to break it though

 

[HappyPants]

SP, 68% left

1 day 18 hours unplugged.

 

[imtoomuch]

Nerdy chest?

Just because I know what the hell I am doing ( and they usually do not) doesn't make me a nerd.

I don't call that nerdy, I call that well informed.

You put somebody down for not being as tech-savvy as you. That's about as nerdy as it gets IMO.

I tried MultiTask Manager after seeing this thread and I really like it.

 

[chichibud31]

"just use system panel to kill apps when needed"..how do you use system panel to kill running apps ?..i would like to know..thank you..

 

[hexdsl]

autostarts looked good, found it on appbrain but not market. has it been removed?