Do I Really Need Advanced Task Killer?

[bingefeller]

Hi there,

I see a lot of people recommending the Advanced Task Killer app and I was wondering what benefits there are to be had from installing it?

The only widget I have running is the Calendar and all I have on my "home" screen is HTC People, Messages, Gmail, Market, Internet and email.

Is this really necessary in my case?

 

[SUroot]

There are no benefits. To be blunt, people recommending it don't know what they're talking.about

See my Sig

 

[bingefeller]

Good article, Dan. I didn't think it would be all that useful. Personally I'm of the opinion that the less junk you put on your phone the better. I guess a lot of people are just following others when they say it's something you need.

 

[SUroot]

Its hard to discredit any pro argument without at least a little technical information to back it up. Its why I put it in my sig, so anyone who sees one of my posts may see the thread.

I think the idea with android is just to let yourself go, lay back and let it do its thing.

 

[kennyhkw]

I let Android do its thing and it runs out of memory after 1 day of general use then needs restarted! Once it gets down to 40MB of RAM the thing stutters along like a drunk! And there is no way of freeing up RAM is there???

 

[wildfireuser]

No, but you do need Task Manager by Adao Team if your on one of the so called unlimited internet data plans.

I have an unlimited data plan, or so I thought till I started getting warning e-mails about my usage and pending further charges if I went beyond my 500 meg monthly allowance.

My Wildfire burns up around 15 megs a day just idling. By idling, I mean just e-mail and text messages so your allowance of around 16.6 megs per day, runs out fairly quickly.

Task Manager stops things from running till you want them to and means you can actually use your phone without fear of further charges.

I would run a network usage monitor too. Pays to keep an eye on just how much traffic your phone actually uses when you thinks it's doing nowt.

Just my opinion and no doubt others may disagree.

 

[Tony.]

I installed ATK after advise from salesman, however I found the Alarm would not work and after reading these forums have uninstalled ATK and had no problems since.
Just my experience

 

[SUroot]

No, but you do need Task Manager by Adao Team if your on one of the so called unlimited internet data plans.

I have an unlimited data plan, or so I thought till I started getting warning e-mails about my usage and pending further charges if I went beyond my 500 meg monthly allowance.

My Wildfire burns up around 15 megs a day just idling. By idling, I mean just e-mail and text messages so your allowance of around 16.6 megs per day, runs out fairly quickly.

Task Manager stops things from running till you want them to and means you can actually use your phone without fear of further charges.

I would run a network usage monitor too. Pays to keep an eye on just how much traffic your phone actually uses when you thinks it's doing nowt.

Just my opinion and no doubt others may disagree.

You could just change the sync frequency of the app or even change your data settings.

Once in froyo, task killing gets harder

 

[joevj]

actually I started using it after seeing in some forums. and I must say its been useful. I go into it every now and then and find some application to be killed. like Opera Mini... I think its useful.

 

[SUroot]

You can do that in android anyway... Settings>Applications>Manage applications.

But you shouldn't need to "kill" apps, unless its poorly coded. Did you read the article?

I go into it every now and then and find some application to be killed.

OCD?

 

[joevj]

You can do that in android anyway... Settings>Applications>Manage applications.
But you shouldn't need to "kill" apps, unless its poorly coded. Did you read the article?

For me ATK remembers my previous choices and automatically retains the previously retained ones. Hence its much easier to use ATK than the Android Default way.

Also, so many aplications doesnt have a provition to close while you exit. At least I could not do that. Some are Opera Mini Browser, camera, flashlight etc etc..

Usually I am able to free the memroy by 20 to 30 mb.. And I think thats useful..

 

[SUroot]

Apps don't need to be closed.

 

[cheesemaster]

I'm with Danfrance - I installed ATK as soon as I got the phone, then got rid of it after a couple of months. My user experience is no different, and if anything I'd say my battery life is better since ATK is not continually polling to check what is resident in memory (although that might be imaginary ). I don't think freeing up memory actually has much benefit on Android - you start something else, it frees it up automatically, you leave it as it is, the more recently used stuff is "already there"


Meanwhile:

My Wildfire burns up around 15 megs a day just idling. By idling, I mean just e-mail and text messages so your allowance of around 16.6 megs per day, runs out fairly quickly.

Holy cow! 15Mb a day on email and text? That's pretty much what I use mine for and I see more like 0.5Mb a day (using 3Gwatchdog as a data monitor - like you I was concerned about going over my allowance). How regularly are you syncing? Do you have anything like Facebook or Latitude running permanently?

 

[SUroot]

Sms takes no data. It's all about what Is syncing and.how.often