Task Killers - The good, the bad and the ugly

[suXor]

I have to disagree a bit. I use ATK, and even if I kill any vital apps like Handcent, Gmail, Mail, etc, they still work. The background processes that are not the applications themselves, continue to operate. For example, SMS is still going to be received, and when it is, the application processes fire the application to deal with any tasks associated with said event. Killing apps doesn't kill processes that are started at the system level.

Now, if you have unread messages and you kill the app, the alerts may stop.

Just my observation, ymmv

 

[Caddyman]

I will have to check that out kci, thank you for the post, def worth looking into.

It's jut ai see people with notification problems and such quite a bit here and the first question is "do you run a task killer?" and the answer is usually "yes" so i kinda attribute it to that, may not be the case though.

 

[OfTheDamned]

I have to disagree a bit. I use ATK, and even if I kill any vital apps like Handcent, Gmail, Mail, etc, they still work. The background processes that are not the applications themselves, continue to operate. For example, SMS is still going to be received, and when it is, the application processes fire the application to deal with any tasks associated with said event. Killing apps doesn't kill processes that are started at the system level.

Now, if you have unread messages and you kill the app, the alerts may stop.

Just my observation, ymmv

Doesn't it defeat the purpose though? You are killing an app that is going to restart when you get a message anyway. The only thing this should be doing is use more battery, memory and CPU to restart the program every time, just so you can kill it again. Sounds like a never ending cycle of self abuse to me.

 

[BoulderAndroidFan]

The Dev. for Advanced Task Manager still suggests excluding critical apps such as Gmail and the great Android Agenda Widget so that there aren't issues where notices aren't being received or updating. I set mine up to auto-kill tasks every two hours, since some apps start up on their own when the phone's asleep. Here's a quote from a reply I got to a question from the dev. of ATM about why the stock Mail app isn't listed as one you could exclude even though it's visible as an app in the program and if there's diminishing returns to setting the auto-kill to more frequent checks: "The stock mail app for the htc eris is automatically excluded for your protection. Running anything more frequently will cause an influx of battery. 30 min is the lowest I allow since anymore will cause more battery harm than help."

Good info. I've been happy with ATM and batt life and performance has increased.

 

[suXor]

Doesn't it defeat the purpose though? You are killing an app that is going to restart when you get a message anyway. The only thing this should be doing is use more battery, memory and CPU to restart the program every time, just so you can kill it again. Sounds like a never ending cycle of self abuse to me.

It is an endless cycle. However there are some instances where I have noticed that simply too many applications are running in the background and are effecting the performance of another that is more cycle intensive (i.e. a game). Having the application(s) reload later is fine.

That being said, I did notice just now that I was not receiving my push email for Exchange in the HTC mail app until I relaunced the app itself. May be a coencidence, so I will keep an eye on that specific app. I think it may vary from app to app which ones still function if the app is not physically loaded to RAM. Some apps will install system processes (Handcent) while others depend on the app itself. Facebook for Android is another that will not do specific things if the application is not running or the widget installed to your idle screen(s).

 

[Caddyman]

testing it now

i killed k9 mail (mail app i use), stock mail app (just to test), and handcent sms

i just checked to make sure they are dead, they are.

sent myself a text on google voice online, and sent my self a email from work email....

well it has been 20 minutes, still no email notification.

opened k9 app....opened it, and new email and notification popped up...

opened stock mail app, opened it, and and new email and notification pops up...

so email apps definitely need to be at least open in the background to get emails/notifications.

sms apps, not so much, i killed handcent dead and it woke up when i got the text, with notifications and all.


i deduce the reason for this is that with sms being pulled from 1x (voice) side of the radio chip, and the phone "polls" the towers every few seconds, when it polls the tower and gets a text it opens the sms app

the emails though are full data/3g, there is nothing active to necessitate polling if the root processes are killed, therefore they won't wake up.

 

[n2imagination]

OK. OTD and others. the question I have is I hit back to get out of apps but then when I hold down home to get to my multitask panel it is still showing them there, like amazon mp3, browser, market, etc. Are you saying that they aren't still running in back? I removed ATM a few weeks back because OTD was so convincing in her argument (I believe her, cant find where that's been verified yet, although it doesnt matter) and see some improved battery life (not a ton) but have been experiencing what seems to me to be more lag and bog.
Thanks for all you guys' input and advice on this forum BTW. Makes this phone so much nicer having a knowledge base.

 

[Podivin]

Pressing and holding the Home key doesn't show what's running, it shows the last 6 apps you've used.

 

[OfTheDamned]

OK. OTD and others. the question I have is I hit back to get out of apps but then when I hold down home to get to my multitask panel it is still showing them there, like amazon mp3, browser, market, etc. Are you saying that they aren't still running in back? I removed ATM a few weeks back because OTD was so convincing in her argument (I believe her, cant find where that's been verified yet, although it doesnt matter) and see some improved battery life (not a ton) but have been experiencing what seems to me to be more lag and bog.
Thanks for all you guys' input and advice on this forum BTW. Makes this phone so much nicer having a knowledge base.

Actually, I believe holding down the home button shows you the last 6 apps that have run and not necessarily what is currently running. I just looked at mine and it shows Music Junk in my last 6 and I have not run that app since 10 this morning. I know it isn't running now because it has a quit option when I hit menu.

The back button isn't going to kill apps in a task killer sense, it will stop some apps when you are done with them and others it will simply put to idle or in the background. With some, like the browser it will put it in the background and then the app will shut down after a period of time. It really depends on how the app was written. With some apps, TV.com comes to mind, there is an exit or quit option when you hit the back button. Other apps, Slacker or Pandora for example, require you to hit the menu button to get the exit/quit option. Many third party apps like this will actually quit that way, but apps like Sports Tap or a twitter app that are designed to update on a regular basis usually just go to the background or idle. This gets into what Caddyman, kcipsirhc and BoulderErisfan where just talking about. Apps like this can't really shut down or they don't get the information they are designed to get.

 

[aleis]

Actually...shouldnt we start petitioning (leaving comments on the market sounds like a good place to start) for developers to add an option to end/close there app after we use it?
i mean it could really save a lot of grief right?

 

[cmack]

Actually...shouldnt we start petitioning (leaving comments on the market sounds like a good place to start) for developers to add an option to end/close there app after we use it?
i mean it could really save a lot of grief right?

+1. I'm game. I would pay for Sports Tap if it only ran when I needed it. There's some incentive...probably not though.

 

[OfTheDamned]

Actually...shouldnt we start petitioning (leaving comments on the market sounds like a good place to start) for developers to add an option to end/close there app after we use it?
i mean it could really save a lot of grief right?

Yes, it would be very beneficial to have on just about every app. I think the only exceptions would be for apps that are constantly updating (twitter, facebook, Rss, etc.) and even some of those could have the option so you could quit them for things like airplane mode.

 

[Bswartz95]

Doesn't it defeat the purpose though? You are killing an app that is going to restart when you get a message anyway. The only thing this should be doing is use more battery, memory and CPU to restart the program every time, just so you can kill it again. Sounds like a never ending cycle of self abuse to me.

+1

This is the point of the Android system. The processes will run in the background, so when they're needed (i.e. messaging), they can be easily activated. This saves battery. Run a test with Facebook, SportsTap, or any other app. If you close it out all the way with a task killer, it takes longer and more battery to open it next time. I've found that an app will eventually kill itself with prolonged non-use, or by opening other apps that take up the memory.

 

[livefreebee]

Ok I was skimming all this talk about the task killers being bad for the android, thinking, I literally know nothing about how a CPU processes and being trained to pop open the Windows Task Manager when my computer goes crazy. My eris is normally very fast and awake time from 14-20%. I uninstalled ATK for one day and my phone was awake over 55% and the battery bombed.

I can vaguely understand what everyone is saying about the android OS and whatnot, but it seems that I cannot live without a taskkiller. I don't compulsively always kill everything, and I leave some essentials unchecked, but I really can't see how my phone could improve by uninstalling a taskkiller.

Should I try again, or just keep on doing what I've been doing?

 

[ExcessiveIdling]

I've ran the gammit from using a task killer to not using one...to using an automatic killer to none and I've found no extreme difference short of it takes longer for apps to load if they are killed. Think of it this way...if you write down a letter to someone but then someone calls you on the phone so you stop writing but DON'T erase what you already wrote..you can go back to it later and not waste time rewriting the whole letter again. It's not consuming any more energy in doing so as you don't have to remember what you wrote already...its there..you just continue. Same premise on the phone...say you open your browser and browse a few sites then you're done for awhile...the browser still stays resident in the memory but not actively being used. When you need to use the browser again it takes LESS resources because you don't have to start it back from scratch. Another analogy...in windows: you decide you're going to browse the web and check your gmail or what have you...then you decide to play world of warcraft but you dont close your browser because you might need to look something up. Is it using more resources when you leave the browser open and play wow? yes BUT the overall performance is better in your browser and wow since you don't have to stress the hdd out and reload the browser into ram. Sorry for the long windedness but I have the day off work and decided to type something up lol.

EI

 

[frickingphil]

since you don't have to stress the hdd out and reload the browser into ram.

This is a point a lot of people seem to be forgetting. On a modern computer, grabbing data from the HDD is slower than from RAM, but it's not too bad for most things.

On a phone, the flash memory is going to be much, much slower than pulling something from RAM. Plus, you have to waste CPU cycles to do so, and considering the relatively limited horsepower of a phone, you need all the cycles you can get. (or save, in the battery's case)

 

[Caddyman]

 

[truelove79]

If the phone is left alone and allowed to run as it should people will see that these apps do not take up that much CPU, RAM or battery. Typically people will also see that their lag problems go away and their battery life improves.

This has definitely been true for me. I was using a task killer for the first couple months of owning the phone. My phone was laggy and a pain to use. I figured it was because I wasn't killing enough apps, or I wasn't killing them often enough. It turned out the reason my phone was being so flaky was because of the task killer itself. I uninstalled it and didn't touch any other app and my phone has run smooth ever since. It was an immediate improvement.