which is best app to prevent apps auto starting

[sharartirulez]

i want to prevent apps to auto start to save battery and ram, which app should i use, grrenify or autorun manager or any other?

 

[lunatic59]

First, you need not concern yourself with free ram on an Android device. Android manages resources better by itself. As for the apps that launch on startup, you can got to menu>settings>apps and select the "running" tab to show you exactly what is really running. Then, the easiest way is to uninstall the app in question.

Automated task killers do nothing but cause more problems than they can potentially solve.

You might find this thread enlightening.

Why You Don't Need a Task Killer.

 

[electricpete]

The task killer discussion gets old. I think there is risk of oversimplifying both sides. ie on one side people want to treat it like pc...not correct. On the other side people seem to imply any discussion of memory management considerations is irrelevant/rejected because "android will handle it all"....which is not always entirely correct either. The latter may be closer to the truth especially for new devices, but there is still room for middle ground. Not all programs are equal, some launch "services" which takes priority over other app processes. Too many of those services can eventually crowd out cache and slow your phone down. Maybe most people with newer phones will never get there, but there are still people with older phones (including the op for all we know) and also some folks with new phones who (if they listen to the oversimplifications) may get carried away on the number and type of apps they install over the life of their phone

 

[lunatic59]

The task killer discussion gets old. I think there is risk of oversimplifying both sides. ie on one side people want to treat it like pc...not correct. On the other side people seem to imply any discussion of memory management measures is irrelevant/rejected because "android will handle it all"....which is not always entirely correct either. The latter may be closer to the truth especially for new devices, but there is still room for middle ground. Not all programs are equal, some launch running service which takes priority. Too many of those can eventually crowd out cache and slow your phone down. Maybe most people with newer phones will never get there, but there are still people with older phones and some folks with new phones who may get carried away on the number and type of apps they install over the life of their phone

Even so, killing off those services is not the answer. If an older phone has too many running services so it taxes it's resources then it's either time to uninstall some or get a device that can handle it. If it's a problem with the app itself hogging resources, then let the developer know and find an alternative.

If you try to tow a boat with a bicycle, the answer isn't to throw away the boat's engine to make it lighter. Similarly, a task killer may make the phone's performance improve briefly, but over time it will make things worse. And it fixes nothing.

 

[electricpete]

None here recommended auto task killer (op didn't ask about auto task killers...you are the one who posted auto task killer link to support your response). What I'm saying is that you are oversimplifying. You don't know what phone he had. He has a right to ask the question. Preventing certain apps from autostarting (which is different than killing) may a good solution for him, and the response "don't worry about anything to do with memory" (paraphrased) is not appropriate imo, at least without more info.

 

[dvhttn]

I'm sorta with electricpete on this but from a slightly different angle, not from apps 'auto-starting' but I sometimes get an app that uses much more CPU than normal for seemingly no apparent reason. I have a Desire HD (still, I know .... :-( ) which has little enough battery anyway but noticed that every now and again it would use much more CPU time overnight - even when in airplane mode. I use it as an alarm so shutting itself down at 1am instead of waking me at 7am is a bit of a pain. I saw that it was either my email app (I use Profimail Go) or my browser (I forget which as I've used a lot) taking all the time. However, there was no reason why they should have as I'd done nothing different to normal when using them when they used more CPU. I put it down to some obscure bug/race condition and now what I do is 'long press' 'home' to get the task list and 'end all'. That measns that anything running is stopped but anything that should auto-start does and the phone is only affected for the better.

Now, if I had a newer phone, as mentioned, that had a much larger battery (wouldn't be hard!) I may not have even noticed it but I did and, in my case, works fine. So, no need for anything more complicated than the built-in task manager.

Oh, I'm running 4.2.2 AOKP on it.

HTH

Dave

 

[electricpete]

Good points Dave - by watching what is going on with apps you may notice one that stands out. It is also a similar point that lunatic59 made.... look at "running processes" to see what's there (rogue programs sometimes also show up looking at battery usage). Uninstalling may be one option if you don't want the program, or if you may need the program infrequently you might just prevent autostart (what op asked about). On my old phone (rooted Samsung Infuse running 2.3.6), I used Gemini apps manager (requires root) to stop Google maps from starting at boot since it seemed to be causing a lot of wakelocks coming from that particular version of google maps. (I haven't had problems with google maps on my new phone). Gemini does the same as programs mentioned in op. I don't think it matters which one you use.

I can see why lunatic's second post addressed auto-task killers... because I wasn't particularly clear in my earlier response. My basic pet peeve (ongoing, not particularly this thread) is that a lot of very knowledgeable people explained why we don't need auto-task killers.... and then a lot of others seem to take that same discussion an unsupportable step further to say that any discussion/concern about memory and how programs/actions affect it should be avoided. I'm not sure if that's exactly what was meant but thats's what I understood lunatic to be saying and that's the particular piece that I disagree with. If it's the worst thing we have to disagree about, life is not so bad. Hope I have not offended anyone.

 

[lunatic59]

Guys, the reason why I brought up task killers was because the OP did. If you look at Greenify and autorun manager (formerly autorun killer <-- same app, different name) they are pretty much an automated task killer/suspender or whatever you want to call it. It was a general question about better ways to save battery and free RAM.

Those are three separate issues. All come with a very basic set of misconceptions about Android and when presented together are generally looking for Windows solutions to Android problems. The first thing to do is explain why it don't work that way.

Now you both bring up two other issues which we don't know if they effect the OP. Namely running old versions of Android and/or using old handsets. Now, prior to FroYo (2.2) task killers (or app managers, system cleaners, etc.) were a necessary evil in a lot of cases. And trying to get a legacy device to run 4.x in a respectable manner might take a lot of tweaking, including very granular process control.

Okay, it's possible in some cases under some circumstances management apps might be beneficial, but for the vast majority of users, the question comes from basic functionality.

I have no problems discussing this, but let's try and help the OP first, okay?

To the OP, if you made it this far (sorry about that), it would be helpful if we know what phone you had, what version of Android you were running and what issues you are having, specifically.

BTW, no offense intended or taken. I have a very thick skin (with a head to match ).

 

[Crashdamage]

If an email app, browser or whatever is causing problems, then the proper fix is not to manually close them or prevent them from loading. Get rid of the problem, don't slap a band-aid on it. Either find a fix for offenders or use other apps.

Properly setup, fairly recent hardware, especially with 1G or more RAM and Android 4x, should not need any special app or RAM management to get good performance and battery life. Period.

If you're still running Cupcake on ancient hardware, maybe it can use some assistance. Otherwise, don't worry, be happy.

 

[hiredgun]

Great discussion and a lot of useful information in this thread, I really appreciate it!! Now this is just a "general" statement, but after reading this all I am wondering if I am correct in gathering that "for the most part" if I am running 2.3.5 on my phone I shouldn't really worry about memory issues on the whole as Android is managing memory itself?

 

[Slug]

if I am running 2.3.5 on my phone I shouldn't really worry about memory issues on the whole as Android is managing memory itself?

Yes, to the best of its ability. However memory management is one aspect of Android that has been improved markedly with each update, so 2.3.x doesn't do as good a job as say 4.3.

@ OP
Something that often causes issues is the confusion between "apps" and "processes". Not everything listed as "running" will be an active app; many will be service processes supporting the OS and/or other apps. One example is Maps; the app only runs if opened by the user, but a Maps service runs constantly if location services are enabled in order to provide geolocation info to anything that requests it. Killing such a process will only exacerbate the problem as it will simply restart because it thinks it's needed.

 

[electricpete]

Guys, the reason why I brought up task killers was because the OP did. If you look at Greenify and autorun manager (formerly autorun killer <-- same app, different name) they are pretty much an automated task killer/suspender or whatever you want to call it.

The title of the op&#8217;s thread is apps to prevent auto-starting. Both apps listed by the op include features to prevent autostarting. Even after the distinction has been highlighted to you, you still seem to be trying to lump auto-task killers together with programs to prevent autostarting. These are different things. The battery eating problems from multiple-restarts that you mentioned for auto-task killers do not apply to programs that block apps from starting (blocking auto-start causes a r different set of problems such as feature that doesn&#8217;t work as expected or possibly FC when the service expected by a particular app is not available.

We are all trying to help. We have different ideas of what that entails.

 

[boathead]

i use all in one toolbox. one of the tools is to stop whatever apps at boot. they remain in my app draw should i need them, but quite frankly i only use a few apps that i need going straight away.

 

[chanchan05]

IMO an app preventing another app from "auto-starting" is a task killer. Look at it this way: The phone boots up and runs it's processes. The auto-start blocker detects an app it doesn't want to run, so it kills it. Now, depending on what app it is, the phone may call for it again and thus running it later, which defeats the purpose of an auto-start killer, unless that app is a task killer which again kills said flagged app to keep it killed.

The way to properly manage an app you don't want to have enabled on the phone at bootup is to disable the app on the system manager (newer phones have it AFAIK), freeze the app via Titanium or similar apps, get into the app settings and disable certain features like auto-sync and set everything to manual.

However, the OP did not specify what phone and which apps. It may be apps which the phone requires to run at some level, like Maps (which several apps call for), or maybe the apps he is seeing are just RAM cached, which really don't matter at all.

 

[electricpete]

IMO an app preventing another app from "auto-starting" is a task killer. Look at it this way: The phone boots up and runs it's processes. The auto-start blocker detects an app it doesn't want to run, so it kills it..

No, that's not what an auto start blocker does. It prevents the program from starting to begin with!!

The way to properly manage an app you don't want to have enabled on the phone at bootup is to disable the app on the system manager (newer phones have it AFAIK), freeze the app via Titanium or similar apps, get into the app settings and disable certain features like auto-sync and set everything to manual.

Adjusting with app settings is preferred if you can, but does not always solve the problem (I referred to wakelock/battery drain problem with a certain version of Maps on my previous phone which was 2.3.6 ... many people we having the same problem at the time and the only way to stop it was to block the app from starting as indicated in link below, or else to freeze it). Freezing has the disadvantage that you cannot run the program easily (requires you to launch TiBu to thaw the program). If you have blocked the program from autostarting, then it does not start at boot or other automatic time, but it remains available to manually launch the normal way (clicking the program icon). At that point (if it's a program like Maps), it will probably stay running until next reboot. It was my preferred solution when maps was giving me wakelocks and battery drain on my 2.3.6 phone. Maps didn't run automatically on boot and never started until I manually started it. After that point I could live with the battery drain or reboot.

See the following xda post item 3. Only 153 users found it helpful! (I was one of those)
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=29420959&postcount=7059

 

[chanchan05]

No, that's ,not what an auto start blocker does. It prevents the program from starting to begin with!!

Uh, yes.

The autostart program would detect the app's process being called up by another process and blocks that, killing that calling process so it won't start. Or it kills the app's process as soon as it starts and shows itself in the log. So it basically would be a task killer IMO. How do you think it works? You're looking for an app that prevents another appfrom even starting.

You seem to think of it as something similar to Titanium's freeze which stops the app from even running. It's not.

Unless you're thinking of a startup manager which changes the list of apps loaded at reboot, but that would still allow apps to autostart later down the line.

 

[electricpete]

How do you think it works? You're looking for an app that prevents another appfrom even starting.

Yes, that's the behavior I'm describing as an autostart blocker. It's definitely what Gemini Apps manager does. I'm not particularly familiar with those other apps mentioned in op...I see from Play description that autorun managerr does indeed let the program start and then kiill it. That is a different behavior and a little misleading by the developer to call it "auto-run managerr", but then again developers call it however they think it will sell.

 

[electricpete]

, ....but that would still allow apps to autostart later down the line.

No- the app does not restart later if you don't want it to. All of the individual app auto start conditions are listed in Gemini and reboot is just one of them. If you turn off all the auto start conditions in gemini, then the app will never auto start . Period. (the only time it will start is if you manually launchm it).

 

[vipl]

Very helpful discussion! Some app run in background to function properly (e.g. facebook) and if you close them they will start automatically.

 

[electricpete]

Right. With Gemini you would have the ability to completely block Facebook from time of reboot until time that you manually launch it. As you say it won't function during that period...you won't get any notifications. Whether this particular app wouldl function proper ly and be"up to date" after you finally start it manually, I'm not sure. Certainly if you use face book frequently this auto start blocking would not make sense. On the other hand, it made good sense to me for maps....that was an app that I used very infrequently, but needed it to be available instantly at my fingertips the few times I did need it. My main point is that this completely different tool than an automatic task killer. There is no killing involved in blocking processes and services from auto-starting using gemini.

 

[Slug]

the OP did not specify what phone and which apps

And until he/she does, all this discussion is moot. It's a simple fact that preventing some things from running can seriously damage a user's experience, and we wouldn't want to cause that.

 

[lunatic59]

The OP has asked about random Chinese apps downloading in another thread and has listed his/her phone as a Voice Xtreme V70. Our resident authority has indicated that this is a Chinese made phone rebranded for the Pakistan market.

In order for any of these start-up managers to work, they will need root, which may not be possible with this handset.

 

[Slug]

Thanks Luna, I managed to miss that.

 

[electricpete]

And until he/she does, all this discussion is moot.

I think it is worthwhile for people to explore differences and learn from each other and work toward greater common understanding in the community.

 

[Slug]

I think it is worthwhile for people to explore differences and learn from each other and work toward greater common understanding in the community.

I completely agree... but it's common courtesy not to hijack someone else's support topic to do so, especially as it's not yet clear exactly what apps the OP wishes to "prevent auto-starting".