Do you really need to kill processes?

[Solitary]

I am sorry if this is something that already was talked about. However i didnt find a good thread about this so i am going to start a new one.

I was told by one geek that i know (trust me, a big big geek) that Android OS learns what apps you use and which you dont. It takes time (1-2 weeks) of normal usage though.

I also found this article
FAQ: Why You Shouldn’t Be Using a Task Killer with Android Geek For Me – Android CDMA Sprint Hero

Now I uninstalled ATK and seeing if the phones performance will be affected in the long run. I have a feeling that the first several days will be pretty slow, but i bed it will get better.

What do you think? My buddy has been using his Eris w/out ATK for a week now and everything is smooth and quick.

 

[Ataranine]

My phone works fine, and I don't use any task killers.

 

[Solitary]

My phone works fine, and I don't use any task killers.

Good

 

[Ataranine]

A reboot once a day doesn't hurt either.

 

[thetomlin2]

Advanced Task Manager for me, but I dont use i all the time ... just when I have a lot of stuff open and am finished using it.

 

[Solitary]

Yea i do that too.

 

[L0stS0ul]

I'll post what I've posted in a few other places before about this topic. I recently did a lot of research and actually wrote my own task manager.

I've found is that there are certain apps that really should be killed. The HTC Web Browser is a killer. The way it caches information causes a tremendous amount of strain on the OS. I now use Dolphin which is much nicer on resources then the default especially if you put the cache on the sd card.

I just got done doing a lot of research on the whole task management for the task manager I wrote and I've found some interesting things. First off the phone's built in auto kill (part of the android os) is set to 16MB which is way to low IMO for this phone. It should be closer to 30MB as that's where I start to see noticeable lag on my phone. (I tried to change it but can't without rooting the phone I believe) It also doesn't really autokill right away. It sends notifications to each of the open applications asking them nicely to release some of their used memory. Its up to the app developer to capture this notification and free up some memory. Not a lot of developers do this so the phone then will start killing processes.

I've also learned in these travels that there is a right way and a wrong way to exit an application. I almost always hit the home button to get back to the home screen. This actually is wrong and I'm working to change my habits. The "correct" way is to use the back button. The OS apparently forces some cleanup when you hit the back button that it doesn't if you hit home. I've noticed my phone uses less memory when I use the back button. I wonder if those having serious lag issues are doing what I do and hit the home button as well?

If you use a task manger you may find that using the back button will sometimes actually kill apps all together. It's easy for a developer to trap the back command and kill their own app which in turn frees up memory.

I did post my task manager app for download. It's not in the marketplace and looks like it never will be but it works great for me, is very minimal, and hides processes you really should not kill unlike the other task managers.

http://androidforums.com/android-ap...nterested-trying-new-task-management-app.html

 

[erisuser1]

Below some level of remaining free memory, the answer is probably yes, and above that level, then answer is probably no.

All modern O/S'es use free memory for file caching - usually much of the user-perceived speedup comes from file write caching, but when files are read repetitively, there can be some read-side speedup too, if sufficient free memory is available to cache the file(s) being read.. This certainly applies to the Eris OS, which is a derivative of a Linux 2.6.x kernel.

So, in some sense, there never really is any "free memory" - the kernel uses available RAM aggressively for file caching. On the write side, it allows an application to move on to doing other things, thinking that it has "written" a file, when some or all of the data is still in fast RAM that the kernel will move out onto a slower device (like Flash memory) after the application has moved on to other activities. Usually, the place where this is most noticeable is "snappy" or "lagging" behavior in the UI in response to user actions.

The problem is that the amount of free memory used for file cache that is needed so that things seem to be "snappy" depends a little bit on the behaviors of applications which are being run. More "free" memory is always a good thing, but after a certain point, more free memory doesn't show much improvement in responsiveness of the machine.

If you use the Windows Task Manager on your PC, you've probably noticed that when the total Virtual Memory (VM) of all the processes in your machine starts to get close to the actual size of physical memory, things start getting really slow. So, using a task manager allows you to keep tabs on that, and exit applications. A task manager on an Android device probably should be used like that - just to keep an eye on things.

I use Aaron La's Advanced Task Manager, and I have it configured to start up at boot time... but I don't have it set up to "automatically kill" anything, and so far, that hasn't really seemed necessary. I just bring it up every now and then, and if there are app(s) running that I started up and I know I won't use for some time, I'll kill them off.

HTH

eu1

 

[hrbib21]

I use ATM as well. Based on a rudimentary before and after observation of my own, my phone does seem to run more smoothly, not to mention generally lag free. I did not notice this with ATK, however.

 

[tats_06]

My phone works fine, and I don't use any task killers.

Same here Task panel was crashing my phone so I let go all those killers and running raw.

 

[Solitary]

I'll post what I've posted in a few other places before about this topic. I recently did a lot of research and actually wrote my own task manager.

I've found is that there are certain apps that really should be killed. The HTC Web Browser is a killer. The way it caches information causes a tremendous amount of strain on the OS. I now use Dolphin which is much nicer on resources then the default especially if you put the cache on the sd card.

I just got done doing a lot of research on the whole task management for the task manager I wrote and I've found some interesting things. First off the phone's built in auto kill (part of the android os) is set to 16MB which is way to low IMO for this phone. It should be closer to 30MB as that's where I start to see noticeable lag on my phone. (I tried to change it but can't without rooting the phone I believe) It also doesn't really autokill right away. It sends notifications to each of the open applications asking them nicely to release some of their used memory. Its up to the app developer to capture this notification and free up some memory. Not a lot of developers do this so the phone then will start killing processes.

I've also learned in these travels that there is a right way and a wrong way to exit an application. I almost always hit the home button to get back to the home screen. This actually is wrong and I'm working to change my habits. The "correct" way is to use the back button. The OS apparently forces some cleanup when you hit the back button that it doesn't if you hit home. I've noticed my phone uses less memory when I use the back button. I wonder if those having serious lag issues are doing what I do and hit the home button as well?

If you use a task manger you may find that using the back button will sometimes actually kill apps all together. It's easy for a developer to trap the back command and kill their own app which in turn frees up memory.

I did post my task manager app for download. It's not in the marketplace and looks like it never will be but it works great for me, is very minimal, and hides processes you really should not kill unlike the other task managers.

http://androidforums.com/android-ap...nterested-trying-new-task-management-app.html

hm i will try using a back button for some time

 

[ayshjeff]

Same here Task panel was crashing my phone so I let go all those killers and running raw.

I found TaskPanel crashed my phone too.. I wonder if I should let the killer uninstall. However, I find there are couples of applications loaded once I connect to 3G/Wifi. Most of them are Milestone-builtin app. Should I kill these application before I put my phone into sleep mode?

 

[bad05gtt]

i use advanced task manager..i keep my wi-fi,bluetooth and gps off unless in use..i have a widget on my main screen for ATM (Press To End) which ends applications before i put my phone to sleep...and handcent instead of native sms...the combination of all of this have really helped my battery life.. im adding the 1750 mAh battery and i feel this poor battery life issue will really be a thing of the past...oh yeah my phone has NOT crashed once EVER!!!! (no battery pulls EVER)!!

 

[sabotor78]

Hello guys,

I want to install an application to kill my programs, and i found these:

Advanced task killer
White killer
Automatic task killer
Atask killer

Which one do you recommend?

 

[newsradio]

Many people here seem to be confused and think that you dont need a task killer app for the Eris...

YES you do.

People will argue that Android is Linux based and that Linux reallocates memory as needed. This maybe true but it is this EXACT process that slows down the Eris and causes even more lag than you already have from the outdated old CPU.

This is proven because anyone can confirm that once the Eris reaches 30mb of memory the entire phone starts to LAG even more than normal and under multitasking the phone becomes ridiculously slow at times all due to this memory reallocation process. This has been 100% confirmed.

This is the MAIN reason why you need task killer apps, to keep your Eris memory free so that apps load fast instead of having the Eris reallocate memory and THEN load the app into memory. Not only that but when the apps you ALREADY have loaded into memory need MORE memory this reallocation cripples performance and again causes more LAG.

 

[newsradio]

Oh ya, we have no fear anymore of OftheDamned spreading more misinformation about this topic because I have proven this member wrong with undeniable proof via log files that confirmed what I have been saying.

 

[Bswartz95]

I'm not going to make generalizations like some people here, because "one size doesn't fit all" when it comes to task managers. I don't have any app killer and my phone works great. A lot of it has to do with what apps you have downloaded.

Do what is right for you. Experiment. I won't be downloading one unless I find a troublesome app, that I just have to have.

Some people are just OCD and need to always know how much memory is available. I've never known and haven't had lag, missed calls, or missed texts. You'll use more battery checking this all the time.

 

[mhrebin]

here we go...lol

 

[mhrebin]

I'm not going to make generalizations like some people here, because "one size doesn't fit all" when it comes to task managers. I don't have any app killer and my phone works great. A lot of it has to do with what apps you have downloaded.

Do what is right for you. Experiment. I won't be downloading one unless I find a troublesome app, that I just have to have.

Some people are just OCD and need to always know how much memory is available. I've never known and haven't had lag, missed calls, or missed texts. You'll use more battery checking this all the time.

very true. I had one installed and I was starting up the ATK just to see nothing was running and then i would kill ATK as well. it was a bad OCD then i remember that it is just a phone and I shouldnt care about how long my battery lasts because Im always at work or home where there is a charger. I think when people have a crapload of apps downloaded onto their phone is when it starts to lag doing normal tasks. To each his own, so I have removed the task killer and just let the good times roll. I go into the applications and force close apps here and there that force the phone from sleep, that is basically it.

 

[DocTauri]

I just loaded Task Panel Lite, I like the idea that it kills everything automagically when I put the phone to sleep. No more thinking about it. The interface could use a little help, but overall I'm happy with it so far.

 

[andrew8806]

I use Automatic Task Killer... I only have it kill the things i dont want running while my phone is locked... but leave things running like pandora or ebuddy,etc... I dont let it kill background processes because that actually makes them load back into memory again and kinda defeating the purpose....

 

[Bswartz95]

I use Automatic Task Killer... I only have it kill the things i dont want running while my phone is locked... but leave things running like pandora or ebuddy,etc... I dont let it kill background processes because that actually makes them load back into memory again and kinda defeating the purpose....

And this uses a lot of battery. It takes a lot to initially launch the browser & facebook app. If they're in the background, they load quickly and use less battery.

 

[ThirdCoast]

I use ATM as well. Based on a rudimentary before and after observation of my own, my phone does seem to run more smoothly, not to mention generally lag free. I did not notice this with ATK, however.

I use this one as well. Phone runs great with it. Plenty fast and battery life seems much better.

 

[AwesomeIT]

I wish ATK could kill threads. Permanently.

 

[aleis]

I use this one as well. Phone runs great with it. Plenty fast and battery life seems much better.

another one for ATM here