Why you don't need a task killer

[HankAtrix]

Never meant Amish=Ignorant just that they see an easier way everywhere and choose otherwise, as Hank sees tons of well backed and reputable info and CHOOSES to believe otherwise. I've always wondered, if Amish can leave and return (so long as they go back to the Amish ways). could someone from the outside decide to go and live Amish??



Back to the topic. what confuses me the most is Hank says his phone "lags" or slows down with sooooo many apps running. when he has an Atrix. my friend has a My Touch 4G and i cant get that thing to lag or slow down if i try! but hey between your eyes and your mouth (fingers in this case) is your brain with ALL of its prejudice and idea about what SHOULD happen. you see what you expect and what you want. not always whats actually there there.

Placebo Effect

i for one used to be in the same boat. as soon as i got my phone my boss and i friend told me I NEEDED to download ATK and blah blah blah. so did. and i set up my ignore list "properly" and i really felt like it made it FASTER.

Then i came on these forums, rooted my phone and after some time here the subject came up. i read the articles and took it off. it took some getting used to. did my phone get "faster" without it? i don't know. but what i do know is it didn't get slower and everything ran smoother and the things i used to kill now loaded faster.

why in the world would these phones keep coming out with more and more RAM.
*<256mb for the for my phone and some other mid-range/older devices and the new phones have 1gb+*
if you are supposed to kill your tasks to keep the memory free?

It is not a placebo effect in my experience and anyone else that has used it. Check the reviews on Android Market for additional support for the real improvement. It is not for everyone (but if you set up the ignore list properly it works great).

With regard to phones coming out with more memory, it is still a fixed amount of CPU and memory that Android has to utilize (whether it is 256 or 1gb). As you add running apps it degredates performance.

 

[Scythe]

Every additional app you have open degrades performance for the running apps and phone.

Not true. Services running in the background will degrade potential CPU performance (although the Activity OS has much higher priority over services in the cpu scheduler, so you'll never notice it). Memory-wise, as soon as you open a new activity that requires more memory then is available, there's a "freeing up" routine that occurs. That routine consists of closing any cached app data bundles behind the scenes, and once it's expended all of that if it needs more memory it'll start forcefully closing out services. Only once you hit the maximum memory for freeing, will performance due to memory degrade.

Again, there's no point in a task killer unless you have an app you use that's horribly coded and doesn't utilize the basic Android framework.

 

[Stuntman]

Dave - Android needs to share the workload of apps and processes across a fixed CPU and Memory (whether it is 1 or 2 processors in current phones). Even though Android is multitasking, it still has a fixed/limited resource for CPU and memory. If you are running many apps, it means the CPU and memory available for running apps is limited (by the hardware, not Android) to process the running apps. Every additional app you have open degrades performance for the running apps and phone.

Many apps not in the foreground are generally not running most of the time. If you are using your browser and switch to your calendar, your browser should not be doing anything and not take processor cycles. A few apps may briefly run periodically to update data like news readers. Your music player may run while you are using another app, but you do not want it killed.

What apps on your phone do you know you need to kill in order to gain increased performance or extend battery life? If you had to manually kill them yourself, which ones are they?

 

[vosg]

what apps on your phone do you know you need to kill in order to gain increased performance or extend battery life? If you had to manually kill them yourself, which ones are they?

atk

 

[Scythe]

It is not a placebo effect in my experience and anyone else that has used it. Check the reviews on Android Market for additional support for the real improvement. It is not for everyone (but if you set up the ignore list properly it works great).

With regard to phones coming out with more memory, it is still a fixed amount of CPU and memory that Android has to utilize (whether it is 256 or 1gb). As you add running apps it degredates performance.

Reviews coming from anyone using Android 1.6 and below are potentially realistic. If you're running 2.0+ (if I remember correctly) they completely revamped the scheduler, and made the process handling more aggressive -- which solved a lot of the earlier problems with abusive apps and degraded performance. So anyone running a newer version of Android should never need one.

So what you're detailing is folks who might be gaining something due to running legacy Android, mixed with the placebo effect from new users.

 

[lunatic59]

It is not a placebo effect in my experience ....

That has GOT to be made into a t-shirt. Too funny (although I doubt everyone recognizes the irony of that statement.)

Check the reviews on Android Market for additional support for the real improvement. It is not for everyone (but if you set up the ignore list properly it works great).

How can an anonymous consumer review possibly provide support? It is the bandwagon fallacy for the (I'm losing count) time. I think it's time to invoke Godwin's law. Look at how many people liked Hitler in the '30s. While his administration did prove to provide a short term fix for Germany's economy the results were devastating, not only to the German people, but the entire world. Popularity among a group, no matter how large that group may be, does not provide proof of value, merit or benefit. Facts are not verified by popular vote.

With regard to phones coming out with more memory, it is still a fixed amount of CPU and memory that Android has to utilize (whether it is 256 or 1gb). As you add running apps it degredates performance.

If the apps are truly in the process of running as in passing packets of code and data through the CPU, you don't want to be killing them, or you could have negative consequences with the performance and operation of your device. Apps listed as running but sitting idle have zero impact on performance and there will be no "degredatation" so killing them is ineffectual and pointless.

This is the single most important point that is continually misrepresented. Two more analogies for those still not able to grasp the concept.

The Football analogy:

Android is your football team and the CPU is the field of play. When your team is executing a play on the field (you are running an app), if you remove any of them while the play is going on, you seriously jeopardize the successful completion of that play. Removing players on the field during a play (killing running apps) is potentially harmful to the game. The players on the bench waiting to take the place of the active players on the field do not impact the play on the field. Sending them to the locker room during a play (killing an idle cached app) has no impact on the play's successful completion nor the efficiency with which it's executed. It does however delay the next play if the player sent to the locker room was scheduled to replace one of the players on the field and does impact the overall efficiency of the game.

Any NFL coach who arbitrarily sends benched players to the locker room because he feels they are distracting the players on the field would be fired for gross inefficiency.

The Commuter Analogy:

Your car is an app along with all the other commuters (apps) driving to the office. The highway is the CPU and your destination is the successful completion of the app. The task killer is a device that will shut off a car's engine immediately.

As you drive to work (running the app) there are cars with you on the single lane road (single core CPU) all travelling at 40 m.p.h. (multi tasking). If there are 2 cars or twenty on the road, they are still travelling at the same speed. There are taxi cabs idling in the convenience store parking lot along the road waiting to be called for a pickup (cached apps waiting for services to be necessary).

Shutting off the engines of the taxi cabs has no impact on traffic, although there will be more wear and tear on the engine if it is continually shut off and restarted. Disabling an engine on a car on the road (killing a running app) will force it to pull over and slow down the other traffic while getting safely out of the way (purging memory) or it will stall and block traffic (lock up phone) or it could cause an accident (corrupting files) in extreme cases.

Arbitrarily shutting off taxi cabs does not help the commuter traffic and disabling commuters on the road only causes problems to the smooth flow of traffic.

I hope this helps!&#8482;

 

[HankAtrix]

Not true. Services running in the background will degrade potential CPU performance (although the Activity OS has much higher priority over services in the cpu scheduler, so you'll never notice it). Memory-wise, as soon as you open a new activity that requires more memory then is available, there's a "freeing up" routine that occurs. That routine consists of closing any cached app data bundles behind the scenes, and once it's expended all of that if it needs more memory it'll start forcefully closing out services. Only once you hit the maximum memory for freeing, will performance due to memory degrade.

It is true that CPU and memory have are a limited resource. When you add apps, you degrade performance for the remaining running apps.

Again, there's no point in a task killer unless you have an app you use that's horribly coded and doesn't utilize the basic Android framework.

ATK is (in my case) a part of my daily life - not just rogue apps. I presume most of the users of ATK are the same (using it daily).

 

[Scythe]

ATK is (in my case) a part of my daily life - not just rogue apps. I presume most of the users of ATK are the same (using it daily).

?

Just because you get into a habit of something doesn't mean the habit is good for you.

 

[Sak01]

This thread has more analogies than a, than a....what has a lot of analogies?

Anyway, I never use task killers. If I have perfomance issues I use Quick System Info or other process monitors to find out what's hogging resources. Than I kill that bugger without worrying about collateral damage.

Surgical strikes > task killers.

 

[dvhttn]

Dave - Android needs to share the workload of apps and processes across a fixed CPU and Memory (whether it is 1 or 2 processors in current phones). Even though Android is multitasking, it still has a fixed/limited resource for CPU and memory. If you are running many apps, it means the CPU and memory available for running apps is limited (by the hardware, not Android) to process the running apps. Every additional app you have open degrades performance for the running apps and phone.

Umm. Yes. This is something that I realise, especially as I have worked with/on/sold/installed multi-CPU computers since about 1990 (Unix/Linux/Windows). The point, ONE of the points, I was making is that people have stated that they do not see a performance degradation - unlike you. Which is not surprising, especially as the CPU in even the most basic smart phone runs at, what, 500MHz+? I started in the Unix world with a 25MHz deskside box with a 480MB hard drive. That didn't get sluggish either. I now have a 1GHz CPU in my phone and a 32GB SDCard (+internal memory in a Desire HD - whatever that is, can't remember).

Again, where are your authoritative articles written by experts on the advantages of task killers? With their confirmed benefits?

Dave

 

[Scythe]

Umm. Yes. This is something that I realise, especially as I have worked with/on/sold/installed multi-CPU computers since about 1990 (Unix/Linux/Windows). The point, ONE of the points, I was making is that people have stated that they do not see a performance degradation - unlike you. Which is not surprising, especially as the CPU in even the most basic smart phone runs at, what, 500MHz+? I started in the Unix world with a 25MHz deskside box with a 480MB hard drive. That didn't get sluggish either. I now have a 1GHz CPU in my phone and a 32GB SDCard (+internal memory in a Desire HD - whatever that is, can't remember).

Again, where are your authoritative articles written by experts on the advantages of task killers? With their confirmed benefits?

Dave

He's a lost cause, just let him go...haha

When you have Android core developers (like Dianne Hackborn), combined with hacking community folks like Cyan -- both telling you that you shouldn't need them, then I have no idea how much more you can convince someone.

For those interested, here's a good article on how multi-threading works within Android (if someone hasn't posted it already). Android Developers Blog: Multitasking the Android Way

 

[lunatic59]

For those interested, here's a good article on how multi-threading works within Android (if someone hasn't posted it already). Android Developers Blog: Multitasking the Android Way

It was posted, but it's a few pages back so a little redundancy for those just stumbling across this morass of information couldn't hurt.

 

[randy35]

Well-behaving applications will go into a "background-mode" and will consume no CPU-resources during that time. Memory is generally not an issue, since the system can send applications from RAM to flash when they are in this state. Blocking applications are more tricky: They keep running in the background consuming a lot of resources. Sometimes because they just keep running without giving the system any opportunity to send them into hibernation, other times because they consume too many events, making them wake up over and over again.

 

[HankAtrix]

Many apps not in the foreground are generally not running most of the time. If you are using your browser and switch to your calendar, your browser should not be doing anything and not take processor cycles. A few apps may briefly run periodically to update data like news readers. Your music player may run while you are using another app, but you do not want it killed.

What apps on your phone do you know you need to kill in order to gain increased performance or extend battery life? If you had to manually kill them yourself, which ones are they?

In my case I am killing 20-30 at a time (the ones that are open depend on what else is going on - other apps that I've opened which will open additional apps, many open when I turn on the phone.

 

[HankAtrix]

Here are some important points to consider in this discussion:
1, Task Killers are not required to run Android.
This is not being debated here &#8211;Android is a fantastic multitasking operating system. But task killers can greatly benefit Android. One of the primary reasons they work is simply is stated below:

2 When you are running apps to your phone each one reduces performance.
As I&#8217;ve said in this dialog, the problem isn&#8217;t Android, it is the limitation that the CPU and memory put on it. When you run additional apps on Android, the phone must spread out the work among fixed limitation: CPU and memory. Anroid is multitasking the phone is not parallel processing hardware. Another way that you are getting performance boost with fewer apps running is that with fewer apps running Android doesn&#8217;t have to waste resources managing the open and cached apps.

3. Task Killers are going to be part of Android.
Task Killers are going to be built-in to Android and is already part of Android and are already part of some Motorola phones (mine came with an &#8216;auto-app killer&#8217;. Would Google put task killers in Android if they were not positive for the phone?

On the site AppBran, it shows that there are over 250,000 downloads for ATK and 291,547 ratings (4.53 average). On Android Market the rating was even higher. This speaks to the general demand for task killers by Android users and there general great satisfaction with ATK specifically.

4 Setting up ATK properly is important
It is very important to set up ATK properly to avoid closing apps/processes that will cause you to re-open apps (or being required by another app). I use ATK&#8217;s recommended processes plus add Lookout, Ultimate Keyboard and JuiceDefender.

In benchmarks my phone runs 20-30% faster just from closing apps (depending on the benchmark with just 30 or so apps running). As I increase the number of apps that I have and run I will have even more reason to close apps with ATK.

I hope this helps.

 

[lunatic59]

One more time... (cue the 1960 game show music)

Valid = Green
Invalid = Red

1, Task Killers are not required to run Android.
This is not being debated here –Android is a fantastic multitasking operating system. But task killers can greatly benefit Android. One of the primary reasons they work is simply is stated below:

Making a valid statement and an invalid statement together does not make the second any more valid. There are only specious claim of vague performance enhancement being provided as proof.

2 When you are running apps to your phone each one reduces performance.
As I’ve said in this dialog, the problem isn’t Android, it is the limitation that the CPU and memory put on it. When you run additional apps on Android, the phone must spread out the work among fixed limitation: CPU and memory. Anroid is multitasking the phone is not parallel processing hardware. Another way that you are getting performance boost with fewer apps running is that with fewer apps running Android doesn’t have to waste resources managing the open and cached apps.

Repeating something incorrect often enough will not make it any more correct than the first time you say it, but the more a person hears an inaccurate statement the more likely they are to think it has merit. Killing cached apps is a useless and wasteful exercise. Killing apps that are actually running is counterproductive and potentially harmful.

3. Task Killers are going to be part of Android.
Task Killers are going to be built-in to Android and is already part of Android and are already part of some Motorola phones (mine came with an ‘auto-app killer’. Would Google put task killers in Android if they were not positive for the phone?

Calling a task manager with the ability to stop processes a task killer does not make it one just because you would like ti to. They are not the same thing.

On the site AppBran, it shows that there are over 250,000 downloads for ATK and 291,547 ratings (4.53 average). On Android Market the rating was even higher. This speaks to the general demand for task killers by Android users and there general great satisfaction with ATK specifically.

4 Setting up ATK properly is important
It is very important to set up ATK properly to avoid closing apps/processes that will cause you to re-open apps (or being required by another app). I use ATK’s recommended processes plus add Lookout, Ultimate Keyboard and JuiceDefender.

And it is virtually impossible to know how to set up a task killer to kill apps with minimal impact on the OS. However the avoidance of task killers has zero impact on the OS and allows the system to operate the way it was designed. If you try to out-think your operating system, you should either be writing your own superior OS or are on the brink of uttering quite a few expletives when your phone goes belly up.

In benchmarks my phone runs 20-30% faster just from closing apps (depending on the benchmark with just 30 or so apps running). As I increase the number of apps that I have and run I will have even more reason to close apps with ATK.

So if you take door #2, do you get the All expense paid vacation to the Caribbean or do you get the rubber chicken? Choosing blind options is only fun when it happens to the other guy.

(end game show music ... roll credits)

 

[hansschmucker]

A task killer is already built into Android... that's not the issue here. The basic point is:

Is a third-party task killer a good idea?
Android has more states for applications than you'll usually find on the desktop... well, than are typically used on the desktop: they exist there too.

An Android application may be (I'm using the wrong terms here, since I'm not developing for Android yet, but you'll get the idea):
1. Running (normal active state on PC)
2. Suspended (no CPU activity, but still in memory)
3. Hibernating (no CPU activity, memory committed to persistent storage)
4. Closed

A third-party app-killer basically sends every application to 4. , skipping 2. and 3. which typically means wasting CPU time starting the application up again.

Again, there are cases when that may be desirable... it's just not the norm and therefore you should be careful which tasks you kill.

Concerning benchmarks: I'm not ruling out that you get that effect immediately after running the task killer, but you'll pay for it the next time you run an application.

 

[aysiu]

lunatic59, just give it up. The concept of "running" applications being cached in RAM is something HankAtrix isn't going to get no matter how many reputable articles you link to about it, no matter how many brilliant analogies you post.

Just give it up. Any newbie looking for accurate information will see all the well-written rebuttals from the first few pages of this thread and know better.

Kudos, by the way, on your amazing patience!

 

[thewhopper]

I just spend the last 24 hours without having Advanced Task Killer installed. What do I think?

Well...I've ended up re-installing Advanced Task Killer (Free)...

The internet usage was unbearable and it took an eternity to make a call when running without ATK.

Once ATK installed I only had 31 mb of memory available. I typically run ATK before doing anything on my phone.

Aside from the default apps, I've only added a handful number of apps.

....then again, my phone is an HTC Eris

 

[_mw_]

Kudos, by the way, on your amazing patience!

+10 to this. I'm subscribing to the "If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all" philosophy given that I have nowhere near the same patience with people.

 

[ardchoille]

What I would like to see from this point on is new information rather than repeating what has already been posted.

Does anyone have anything new that is fact-based and/or from a reputable source?

 

[KingOfGreen]

I just spend the last 24 hours without having Advanced Task Killer installed. What do I think?

Well...I've ended up re-installing Advanced Task Killer (Free)...

The internet usage was unbearable and it took an eternity to make a call when running without ATK.

Once ATK installed I only had 31 mb of memory available. I typically run ATK before doing anything on my phone.

Aside from the default apps, I've only added a handful number of apps.

....then again, my phone is an HTC Eris

i used an eris for a while. and it WASNT MADE to handle the new apps and everything going on. its OUTDATED. but even then i never had to use a task killer. no doubt that after carpet bombing your phone the very next thing you open will load faster. but everything you killed will open back up wasting resources and for that time making your phone even slower. then you kill then again and every app you open is starting from square 1 or -1 and will take longer than if it had been left open. on a phone such as the eris its more beneficial to manage your apps and their settings to maximize efficiency you will see better battery life as well. but yes its easier to just kill off everything.

you dont see people driving a 91 honda complaining about it taking to long it takes to get up to speed on the freeway. cant help that your phone as well as mine are outdated, boy would i LOVE to have flash. and believe me, i have an ally with very similar specs to an eris and in order to run well i have had to fine tune all my apps settings and watch out for garbage apps. a friend has a My Touch 4G and i was very impressed by what the newer phones are capable of (Motorola Atrix for example)

Despite a couple of articles againts task killers (which are very much in the minority), the task killers save memory when they close the applications. My phone runs very slow if I don't hit kill apps. The most efficient way to kill apps (in my case anyway) is ATK.

Hank, could you please link me to these articles which are the majority saying that task killers are as good as you say, because I CANT FIND ANY. everything i see is quite the opposite. you have failed to provide ANY proof other than "when i. . . . " or "for me. . ."

other than the "after i kill of everything my phone gets faster" what android experince do you have that makes you think you know better than ALL the app/ROM/Google devs that say task killer are no good?

3. Task Killers are going to be part of Android.
Task Killers are going to be built-in to Android and is already part of Android and are already part of some Motorola phones (mine came with an

 

[Stuntman]

In my case I am killing 20-30 at a time (the ones that are open depend on what else is going on - other apps that I've opened which will open additional apps, many open when I turn on the phone.

Can you please name these 20-30 apps or at least some of them? Please, provide some examples of some of the apps that open when you turn on the phone which you kill to improve performance or battery life. Please, also provide some examples of apps that open due to other apps that open and that you need to kill.

 

[vosg]

My argument is that running fewer apps leads to better performance ... etc ...

You keep talking about RUNNING apps, even if the difference between inactive "cached" apps and running ones has been explained over and over again.

Do you really fail to see the difference?

People have also asked you to post those apps that slow down your device. You don't answer.

For me, task killers do more harm than good (own experience).

If you don't come up with some examples, I don't see any benefit in following this thread any longer.

Best of luck with your task killer.

 

[Bayint Naung]

Empty process
A process that doesn't hold any active application components. The only reason to keep this kind of process alive is for caching purposes, to improve startup time the next time a component needs to run in it. The system often kills these processes in order to balance overall system resources between process caches and the underlying kernel caches.

Processes and Threads | Android Developers