Database Users

Task killers...Is it REALLY needed?

Hello guys;
just received my phone yesterday and i have a question regarding open programs
does the back button until home screen close the program or it still run in memory?
some people advise the use of task killers to kill unwanted tasks to save battery
while others say that Linux is handling this automatically and using task killers is no use
some people claims that after they stopped using task killers their battery life was better
i am new the Android as i am an ex WinMo user so please enlighten me
Thanks for huge efforts guys

Yes, they are. Android does a poor job of managing tasks, even to the point it auto starts like everything in your phone and very few of them turn themselves off.
You can manually manage them in applications, running processes, but task killers are so much easier.
I have owned 3, and the one that is easiest to use, that I have never found a bug with is Advanced Task killer (Little green droid icon). The purchased version is expensive, but worth it as it gives you one click widget to kill tasks.
Advanced Taskiller is known for crashing the home screen and stopping vital system services requiring a reboot. I own the full, and I have no use for it.

Okay, let's see how many questions I can answer here....
First of all, using the back button does not close the program. Neither does the home button. Android does handle this natively, but it does so automatically. It doesn't matter how you exit a program, it stays running until it needs to close. Whenever too many apps are running, slowing the system down, it will close the older ones as needed. All automatically. Nice, huh?
Task killers let you do this more aggressively, or manually. You may want to do this if you want your system to be "extra" fast, or to save battery. Most of them have extra features, too, like switching to running apps, or uninstalling them, etc. Beyond that, you don't need it. Some people say that task killers actually drain battery, but in my experience, they help slightly. And they do improve performance slightly too--as long as you are smart about not killing the wrong apps. (HINT--if it's a widget or a background service, never kill it)
So really, it's up to you. Get a free one, or a trial, and try it out, see if it makes things better or worse. Just take into account the learning curve before you give up on it--you have to exclude widgets, background processes, and maybe a couple other apps, too... takes a bit of trial and error to figure out which apps get bugs when you kill them.

It's not necessary but highly recommended. I use Taskiller the paid version. I mainly use it to kill apps that start to have problems and to kill a lot of the apps that boot with the phone.

on G1: i use it every time i reboot, because on boot/startup, some apps open automatically that are not needed (e.g. maps, Documents To Go, alarm, etc.)
clears up a lot of memory
on Nexus One: not sure yet whether that's really necessary considering more RAM available

I use Advanced Task Manager purely because I bought it on my G1 and so thought I might as well. It has a kill-all widget (you can set exclusions of course) but I don't use that. I normally only use it to kill apps that I want to restart or just to monitor what apps are doing what.
I have tried running the phone without using it at all and using its automation feature to kill everything except widgets and background processes every 30 mins. I honestly didn't notice any battery life difference or performance except that abviously apps were slower to open if they'd been killed rather than when they were in the background.
In my opinion and based on anecdotal experiments, task killers are not necessary on the N1 and certainly nothing like as vital as they were on G1

system6 said:
Yes, they are. Android does a poor job of managing tasks, even to the point it auto starts like everything in your phone and very few of them turn themselves off.
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Bull****. Prove your statement. This isn't Windows we're talking about. Android manages tasks and memory very well, if only people let it... but for some reason people can't understand that Android WILL automatically free memory AS NEEDED. Instead they open a task killer and **GASP** see open programs!! Autostarting certain apps is actually a good thing, since often those are the apps that people tend to use often, so they load very quickly. There is always some free memory with Android, and it never lets it get to a point where that drops to 0.

uansari1 said:
Bull****. Prove your statement. This isn't Windows we're talking about. Android manages tasks and memory very well, if only people let it... but for some reason people can't understand that Android WILL automatically free memory AS NEEDED. Instead they open a task killer and **GASP** see open programs!! Autostarting certain apps is actually a good thing, since often those are the apps that people tend to use often, so they load very quickly. There is always some free memory with Android, and it never lets it get to a point where that drops to 0.
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Click to collapse
+1. I dont use any task killers and have had no problems with speed or battery life.

uansari1 said:
Bull****. Prove your statement. This isn't Windows we're talking about. Android manages tasks and memory very well, if only people let it... but for some reason people can't understand that Android WILL automatically free memory AS NEEDED. Instead they open a task killer and **GASP** see open programs!! Autostarting certain apps is actually a good thing, since often those are the apps that people tend to use often, so they load very quickly. There is always some free memory with Android, and it never lets it get to a point where that drops to 0.
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This.
I thought a task killer was necessary and went out and spent the dollar something on Advanced Task Killer. It made me feel "good" to know what I control what apps are open. But you know what? Ever since a factory reset, I have not put the Task Killer back on my phone and it's been about a week and a half if not more of letting android control my memory... And like uansari said... Android does a very good job of it.
I have not had to close any apps because of short memory. Android does a great job. Save your money.

Android (and Windows for that matter) has great memory management, but it's mostly a problem of rogue apps that don't sleep properly. I have Advanced Task Manager, and I've noticed with the Nexus One I see more "applications" running (like Launcher) that didn't show up on my G1 (running Enom's 1.6 before I got my N1). I found that I had to block a bunch of apps to keep them from being closed, and I got a couple of weird bugs that seemed to stem from closing apps. One of them was this problem with the audio not be routed properly to my BT or wired headset when connected. I use the task manager much more sparingly now, and only kill apps when they act up.

I really wish we had "Cards" like the Pre, so we could always know exactly what was open. Plus, the ability to "alt-tab" (swipe back and forth) is a million times better than this "hold home button" crap. Sigh. Need better alt tabbing.

while i do not disagree that Android does a ok (yes, ok! just that...) job to manage tasks & processes, I disagree that it opens or keeps open apps that are necessary or frequently used. That's not Android that does it, it's the apps that tell it to do it.
for instance (as i mentioned a few posts up), everytime i boot, it opens "Documents To Go"... an app i most infrequently use, almost never, but like to have in case i have to review a doc or excel sheet on the go.
It doesn't have to open on startup, it is not frequently used, but it still opens on start up.
so yes, i do use task killer, on startup. but i use it sparingly thereafter

shmigao said:
while i do not disagree that Android does a ok (yes, ok! just that...) job to manage tasks & processes, I disagree that it opens or keeps open apps that are necessary or frequently used. That's not Android that does it, it's the apps that tell it to do it.
for instance (as i mentioned a few posts up), everytime i boot, it opens "Documents To Go"... an app i most infrequently use, almost never, but like to have in case i have to review a doc or excel sheet on the go.
It doesn't have to open on startup, it is not frequently used, but it still opens on start up.
so yes, i do use task killer, on startup. but i use it sparingly thereafter
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That's fine... so Document to Go opens at boot, along with other apps. My point is that as you start opening other apps, and Documents to Go stays latent, it will get closed automatically as other apps demand memory. I'm not directing this specifically at you, shmigao... just responding to a concern a lot of people seem to have. Apps automatically opening at startup is common and don't cause a performance decrease.
I have yet to experience any slowdowns on my N1, and I never use the task killer that's built into Astro.

i use "automatic task killer" free from the market and my phone runs fine. I dont even have to think about it, because it clears memory when phone goes to sleep. I think it was more needed on htc magic than nexus.

uansari1 said:
Bull****. Prove your statement. This isn't Windows we're talking about. Android manages tasks and memory very well, if only people let it... but for some reason people can't understand that Android WILL automatically free memory AS NEEDED. Instead they open a task killer and **GASP** see open programs!! Autostarting certain apps is actually a good thing, since often those are the apps that people tend to use often, so they load very quickly. There is always some free memory with Android, and it never lets it get to a point where that drops to 0.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly.
I stopped using task killers on my N1 because it cause more problems and hosed my battery faster. I haven't used it in almost two weeks, and the phone is smooth and the battery lasts a lot longer.
No need for task killers on the N1, IMO.

uansari1 said:
Bull****. Prove your statement. This isn't Windows we're talking about. Android manages tasks and memory very well, if only people let it... but for some reason people can't understand that Android WILL automatically free memory AS NEEDED. Instead they open a task killer and **GASP** see open programs!! Autostarting certain apps is actually a good thing, since often those are the apps that people tend to use often, so they load very quickly. There is always some free memory with Android, and it never lets it get to a point where that drops to 0.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
HA! Tell me how you really feel....LOL. I have tested my wifes G1 and my old MyTouch and found it gave me about 30% more battery time.
Yes it will auto close programs when it needs the resources, just like a Palm pre, but running processes are just that.....RUNNING.

uansari1 said:
Bull****. Prove your statement. This isn't Windows we're talking about. Android manages tasks and memory very well, if only people let it... but for some reason people can't understand that Android WILL automatically free memory AS NEEDED. Instead they open a task killer and **GASP** see open programs!! Autostarting certain apps is actually a good thing, since often those are the apps that people tend to use often, so they load very quickly. There is always some free memory with Android, and it never lets it get to a point where that drops to 0.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am perfectly happy with android managing my open applications and I have no concerns about RAM. My primary problem is that I am given *no* way to actually close an application if I really want to. An open application could still be polling, syncing, or updating and if I don't want that anymore how can I close it without the application developer explicitly coding an option for me to do so?
(an) Automatic task killer gives me the peace of mind that I can close applications that I use only once in a while and start with a clean slate every time I unlock the device.
I am not one of those users who places every single program there and requires a minimum amount of free ram, but I do have it cleaning up programs that have no business staying resident.

Wouldnt it by wise to use the "ignore" list many of these apps have.
That way you can have your frequenly used apps always able to quick load and the ones that you never use killed off.
I understand that Android has good memory management but I dont see the point of having some apps sitting there when I have no intention of opening them up on a regular basis.

Wow! Such heated debate over something so simple!
This isn't Android 1.0 or 1.5 or even 1.6(pretty darn good at auto closing)... this is Android 2.1 on 1ghz w/512mb RAM! The auto scaling of the CPU and the auto task closing is very, very, very good! There is no need for a task manager unless you want to use it to close something very specific because you want it closed NOW!
But there is no NEED for it, especially on the Nexus One. All it will do, if used regularly, is decrease battery life (yes, decrease, because it takes a lot more CPU power to open up an app than it takes to hold that program in the RAM's cache). As well, it will slow down your Android experience... Hero users found this one out, at least smart ones did, that the best way to keep it zipping along was to not use a task killer, except for media rich apps like youtube, music player, video player.
On a G1 running a Hero ROM, slightly different story in terms of speed, it was beneficial for several reasons; 1. Android 1.5 doesn't have nearly as good auto task management as 2.1. 2. A G1 used almost all of it's RAM to boot up the Hero ROM, and thus the auto settings were no where nearly as agressive as they would need to be.
But we are not talking about a G1 running a Hero ROM... we are talking about a Nexus One running stock Android 2.1...
If the OP, or anyone, wants a task killer, get Astro file manager, and use that. Kill the select few apps that you really want to when you get done, but don't bother getting an auto killer that messes with the already amazing job Android 2.1 and the Nexus One do!

it can be useful... i use it to close certain app that autostart or keep running in the background and use the GPS franticly trying to get a location

New to android...taskmanager??

This is obvioulsy my first android device and although cool. its a lot to get use too. I am used to having a taskmanager to close any open applications or ones running in the background. How do you to that with the Droid X? Everytime i opened an app, i just hit the home button and assume it closed. How do you close a program or an running app? Sorry if its a dumb question

You can download an app manager from the market. However, you probably don't even need to worry about that since the processor can more than likely handle the open apps. The android os is pretty good at managing your apps for you. Some people even say that the app manager messes the phone up.
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App

thank you...i'll just keep it the way it is then and assume the app closes when i exit to the home screen.
Another question for all the Droid X users. Is there a way to remove that little green droid that give you tips on the home screen. He is as annoying as the paperclip dude in microsoft word

nevermind...i just had to drag it down into the waste basket. i did try it before, must just not have draged it far enought donw before

Just to tell you, btw, apps in Android are notified when they get minimized so they can release resources. So say you're in a game, and you hit home, the game knows that you aren't playing anymore, so it's not just sitting on the menu eating resources.

microdot said:
nevermind...i just had to drag it down into the waste basket. i did try it before, must just not have draged it far enought donw before
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All that does is remove it from the home screen, it doesn't kill the app.

nindoja said:
All that does is remove it from the home screen, it doesn't kill the app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i understand, i just wanted to have it off the homescreen....maybe replace it with a nice digital clock widget.

Another winmo convert like myself? Just laughing as this is what I was doing all day yesterday.
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App

Two recommended Task Managers are TasKiller (I use) and ATK / Advanced Task Killer (my wife uses). Both are spoken highly of around here.

x.v_ said:
Just to tell you, btw, apps in Android are notified when they get minimized so they can release resources. So say you're in a game, and you hit home, the game knows that you aren't playing anymore, so it's not just sitting on the menu eating resources.
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Sorry so are you saying that android automaticaly kills the program when you exit out or say hit home? If so is apps like taskkillers really necessary and why do people have them?

No, task killers aren't necessary, and generally people only have them because they don't know any better. Having loads of free memory will do nothing to increase your performance because most apps don't require much, and the very reason Android keeps them in memory is to reduce loading times. Unused RAM is wasted RAM. Android will automatically kill old tasks if it needs to free up memory, so trying to micromanage and preemptively kill tasks yourself is a waste of time and will only make your experience worse. Poorly designed "automatic" task killers from the Market can even decrease your battery performance, so be wary.

I may fall into the "don't know any better" crowd since this is my first android phone, but I'd had the voice recognition app lock up on me a few times and using the task killer to end the app and restart it was the only way I could get it running again.
Unless you have any way I could have done that, it seems to me that task killer has its uses.

You can kill tasks and services from stock Android's Applications menu under Settings.

microdot said:
Sorry so are you saying that android automaticaly kills the program when you exit out or say hit home? If so is apps like taskkillers really necessary and why do people have them?
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Because whoever builds the ROMs for these phones thinks that having built in apps you never use running in the background is a good idea.
DroidX for instance launches a whole bunch of apps on boot you are not using, no need to have them tying up memory.
Even some relaunch themselves in the background when other apps are opened.
So to answer your question, the default ROMs that ship with the phones are generally sloppy. You dont NEED a task killer but it helps speed up the device.
Its like getting a cheap HP or Dell computer from Best Buy, they load it up with some much crap you have to re-image or uninstall all the software you dont need.
You can't unfortunately uninstall the programs that are locked by the ROM.

The only app manager I use is System Panel from the Market. I only used it before on my Eris to monitor memory and battery life. I use it on my X now for informational purposes, because the X is so much faster than the Eris was, which I loved by the way.
Tl;dr its good for monitoring, but above posters are right, mostly unnecessary.
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App

Must Have Apps

So I just picked up a pair of evo's yesterday.
I got my fiance a white one and me a black one.
I'm new to the whole android scene but not to the hacking scene. I came from the palm pre which lets face it sucks if you don't hack it.
But I was wondering what are some must have apps and/or widgets for the evo.
For me and my fiance alike.
I got a task killer and sms popup and some stuff like that. But what else is there that is going to really make this phone shine?
Let me know. OH and I got the xda app so don't worry about suggesting it lol
And I've used xda in the past with my old windows mobile dash/exaclibur. It's a great community.

Please use the Q&A section. It's there for a reason.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

If someone would be kind enough to move this for me that would be awesome. I didn't see that question and answers thread at the time of posting this. My bad.

Just do some research.
Task killers are a no no.
There are 70,000 apps to choose from, to each their own. Check out appbrain.com for reviews etc.

redditor01 said:
Please use the Q&A section. It's there for a reason.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
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[sarcasm] excellent response, junior [/sarcasm]
For one, give up on the task killers now. They are redundant and do more harm than good. Task killers are good for one thing in an android device, closing a problem app. Android does a great job of managing tasks all on its own.
My must haves:
Handcent (be sure to disable notifications in the stock messaging app)
Audio Manager
DocsToGo
Root Explorer
Google Earth
Google Voice (I use it for vvm only)
Dropbox
Pandora
Shazam
System Panel
ShootMe
Wireless Tether for Root Users (now in the market )

What's wrong with task killers? I'll take it off cause I trust you guys but just wondering what is the problem with them?

Barcode Scanner
Apps Organizer - Put apps in folders instead of having one long list
Systray Monitor - See percentage of battery left in toolbar
LED Desire Light - lets you use the flash for your camera as a flash light
Google Sky Map
Dolphin Browser - better browser
Shazam - recognizes songs
Pandora
Music Junk - can find just about any song

guitarjockey said:
What's wrong with task killers? I'll take it off cause I trust you guys but just wondering what is the problem with them?
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Do some searching, you will find plenty of good reading on the subject. You may even start in one of the older device forums, there was a lot of discussion on the subject in the CDMA Hero section.
Android manages it's ram and it does it quite well. A task killer is just another app that is always running, it's completely unnecessary and if you don't set it up right you might be killing stuff that you need.
If you want more detail than that I'm sure it will be VERY easy to find..
@xHausx, fwiw I used to be a huge fan of SysTray Monitor but I learned it runs rampant and uses more juice than it deserves. Unless they have updated it to perform more efficiently I had to drop that one from my must haves list when I had my Hero.

I use a task killer and have had good results with it, I just have it ignore everything except stuff I know is not needed and kill it when I am done. If you kill everything stuff will be constantly restarting and draining your battery

nebenezer got most of the must have apps. However, one app you MUST get is AppBrain. Its also a website. What it does is you go to www.appbrain.com, log in with your gmail account, get the app from the android market and then you can surf the Android market through a web browser and select which apps you want. Then go to your phone, open AppBrain, select Manage my apps, and sync. Then you can install all the apps that you just saw on your PC. Very handy and much easier than surfing the entire market on your phone.
Basically, you will want a file explorer like Root Explorer (only useful if you are rooted (which I recommend you do)), Astro File Manager, ect.
If you dont like the Sense UI that comes with your HTC Evo or if you would like to try something else, some other home applications are available. My fav is LauncherPro but another great one is ADW.Launcher. These apps replace your entire home screen and interface with highly customizable interfaces that can be themed and tailored to your expectations.
The stock music app sucks imo. doubleTwist is a great player to replace it until we get froyo.
Another must is Screebl Lite. This app detects how you are holding your phone and will prevent the screen from sleeping until you set it down so that its resting at a 90* angle or a 180* angle and with this you can have the phone's timer set very low to allow for excellent power savings. Mine's set at 15 sec so when Im reading something on the internet, I dont have to keep tapping my screen so that the screen wont dim, turn off, and lock on me.
Here is the list of Apps I use a lot and are must haves for me:
Barcode Scanner
Torrent-fu
Gmail Unread Count
Screebl Lite
doubleTwist Player
Handcent SMS
Dropbox
AppBrain App Market
Pandora Radio
AudioManager Widget
Engadget
ASTRO FileManager
Gmote 2.0 <~ Very cool app if you like to watch stuff on your PC from your bed or couch.
Places Directory
SwitchPro Widget
LauncherPro Beta
XDA
System
Lastly, the whole speculation on task killers is kinda iffy. Some ppl think that killing tasks hurts the battery cause the apps will just then have to restart and that uses more CPU cycles than just leaving it running in the background, and in theory they are right. With a stock, unrooted, HTC Evo, you are going to have bloatware constantly restarting if you use a taskkiller. I used one anyways cause I multitask like a champ and when I finished my session, I ended it with a task killer and then locked my phone and went about my business. Now, what you need to do is pay for and use a program called 'System'. Its amazing. It will show you all the apps running in the foreground, background, system apps, and user set excluded apps. System shows how much CPU time apps are using and how much of a drain it puts on your battery for a period of time which is set by you, the user. It can monitor and show apps that eat battery like a fat kid at mcdonalds. With System, you can add apps to an "excluded" list so that they arnt killed when you run the taskkiller. Very handy app.
Hope this helps. tl;dr.

xHausx said:
I use a task killer and have had good results with it, I just have it ignore everything except stuff I know is not needed and kill it when I am done. If you kill everything stuff will be constantly restarting and draining your battery
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You should definitely check out an app called autostarts, you'd probably like it
HOW COULD I HAVE FORGOTTEN TO MENTION LauncherPro?????
so embarrassing

Ya know, touchwiz has a nice little task killer and system widget!

If you have touchwiz still running, long press on the screen and add a samsung widget then program monitor. It's pretty basic but it does the job and lets you know if something is eating up cpu/memory. It erl change to red when something is misbehaving, so you can go in there and shut it down. I use it quite often and haven't had any problems so far. I know, I know, you shouldn't use task killers. This one is "built in", does that still mean it's bad to have/use?
Maybe, but maybe because that kind of app is so popular, samsung decided to put one in there.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

herbthehammer said:
If you have touchwiz still running, long press on the screen and add a samsung widget then program monitor. It's pretty basic but it does the job and lets you know if something is eating up cpu/memory. It erl change to red when something is misbehaving, so you can go in there and shut it down. I use it quite often and haven't had any problems so far. I know, I know, you shouldn't use task killers. This one is "built in", does that still mean it's bad to have/use?
Maybe, but maybe because that kind of app is so popular, samsung decided to put one in there.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use it a lot actually..its at the center of my main home screen...I personally don't like too many applications running at the same time even if the phone can handle it...If i'm not using an app or see on eating battery I kill it.its very convenient.

For apps that just start back up again that weren't actually consuming any CPU, you can actually make battery life worse, since it's more expensive to kill + reload the app than to just leave it running.

Another way to access the task manager is to long press on the home button. You'll see your recent apps and the button for the task manager This way you can still use it if you load up launcher pro like me (widget no longer available).

I really love the System Manager!
Its been said a million times that task managers aren't necessary but I still close apps once I am done with them. I used Advanced Task Killer constantly on my Nexus, but for some reason it froze up my Epic.....
The stock System Manager is nice because it doesn't show system programs that need to stay open.

I Thought on 2.1 it's still beneficial to use an app killer? obviously if you're going to open the program up constantly, just leave it. But I'm pretty sure it's froyo 2.2 where an app killer is not recommended.

I love it and use it but sometimes have an issue with it closing the wrong program when I tap end. idk what's up with that but it can be annoying

Why did Samsung put in a task manager and a "kill all tasks" button?

So Samsung for whatever reason, decides it's a good idea to include an easy to access task manager with a giant "kill all tasks" button in TouchWiz. It seems like everyone I know, that has a Galaxy S II, has adopted a certain behavior due this. What they do is, every time they put their phone away, they will automatically go to this task manager and kill all tasks, before locking the phone. When I ask them why the hell they're doing that, the answer is usually something like "wasting battery blah blah blah" or "wasting CPU blah blah blah"... NO!
For starters:
http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/
http://lifehacker.com/5650894/andro...ed-what-they-do-and-why-you-shouldnt-use-them
http://www.infoworld.com/t/smartphones/myth-android-devices-need-task-killers-609
http://androinica.com/2010/05/googl...-imply-task-killermanager-apps-are-pointless/
People that are doing this, educate yourself. And Samsung, well done for encouraging this.
Just because a task is in memory, doesn't mean it's doing anything, and certainly doesn't mean it's using up battery. If it's staying in memory, it's because there's no need to release it just yet. If you start it up again, it will already be there, and load up faster. The alternative is, you keep killing it, and every time you run it again, it will have to reinitialize and reload everything. Which option do you think is actually going to cost more battery?
The whole thing with people saying "oh no it's using CPU, i must kill it"... what?! If it's using CPU, it's probably doing something. Why the hell are you killing a process while it's in the middle of doing something? Do you not care about data integrity at all? It could have been in the middle of syncing, or in the middle of a write operation who knows.
If you run other applications and your memory runs low, then Android will close it. And it will close it properly, as opposed to you force killing it, denying it of any chance to clean up.
Obviously there are rare exceptions with dodgy programs. But most of the time, the tasks being killed are system apps, or trustworthy apps, properly written by Google or Samsung.
If you're not a developer, you probably won't understand the whole Android application lifecycle.
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Activity.html
By force closing an application, you're not allowing it to run its onStop() and onDestroy() functions. This is where apps do all the clean up, releasing resources, unregistering things, closing connections etc.
Do you do this on your PC. Open up Windows task manager, and just kill any task that's using CPU. Or hell, just kill all tasks every 2 minutes! Good luck with that.
This has probably been said hundreds of times, but a lot of people i know are getting GSII's and I see them doing this constantly. It's stupid. Do you really think they designed the operating system so that you have to kill everything each time you touch it?
TLDR: Stop "killing all tasks" (unless theres actually something wrong) and well done Samsung for encouraging this. Just stupid.

Damn your right, I never used a task killer on previous android phones, but for some reason I have got into the habit of doing it now. So I'm going to kill that habit. Well noticed

Well according to the user guide (the full one from Samsung's website)... though personally I don't bother killing anything
Use the task manager › ›​
Your device is a multitasking device. It can run more than one application at the same time. However, multitasking may cause hang-ups, freezing, memory problems, or additional power consumption. To avoid these problems, end unnecessary programs using the task manager.​
1 In Idle mode, open the application list and select Task manager → Active applications.
The list of all the applications currently running on your device appears.
2 To close an application, select Exit.​To close all active applications, select Exit all.

i like the placebo effect and stop telling me what i have to do or not to do!
your writing style is to aggressive, stop being aggressive!

For me, it is worth to have the clear memory option because I already faced the glitch or bugs program which cause my phone to run constantly at 1.2ghz and this will cause my phone become extremely hot. I can't see what application is running but for some reason, the cpu gone crazy. It drain battery in no time. With the simple one click button, I can closed the programs without need to restart the phone. Yes, generally I will let the android system to handle the application by itself but I still think it was a good moved by samsung to have task manager if we use it in proper way...
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Well it's not all that bad, with 2 cores one core can easily come into a deadlock and the device will continue to function albeit much slower and consuming a lot of power, when this happens in the taskmanager the processes are listed red

Thanks ever so for much for this post I have just got my first Android phone and thought by doing this it would increase the battery life a tad but did kinda think it was a bit daft having a system that required manually killing tasks. Coming from a Windows 6.1 XDA Zest I am still getting my head round an OS that's doesn't require hours on Internet to work out how to do things.

Sad, but true, I was getting onto Android from Symbian, and first thing after I realised that I do not have option of killing all apps, I have installed the task killer and kept using it for like a week, then I've read one of the articles about it, that its wrong, and that Android is not working as Symbian nor Windows, so I realised that I dont need to do that... unninstalled it and not using it at all since

You don't need Task manager / killer if only all android applications are developed by good programmers that implement Android application lifecycle properly.
The problem is not all applications are developed this way. Some application may buggy / in beta stage that still consuming processing time even they are in background.
Task manager is still useful to close nasty program manually. But I do agree, auto-kill is useless and can cause battery drain and system instability.

Yep .. it's mostly services what eats battery. And there is poor control over that. It would be interesting to see what service was active at what time, or even how much battery did it use. All battery discussions are about guessing what is running in the background and how often and how much. We should not guess such things.

As far as I'm concerned an in built task manager is just as important as an in built modem right now. There are far too many unstable applications out there that hang up and Android can never fully deal with them(despite what research may or may not have been done in the past).
I have a few games installed on my S2(namely Pool Break Pro & TNA iMPACT!) that crash quite often and require the use of the task manager to manually end those programs(they are in the task manager highlighted in red when they have stalled).
However, what I will say is that the button to clear memory in the RAM manager really shouldn't be there at all. The task manager alone is more than enough to manually exit necessary apps that crash and stay open for no reason.

I like to have the ability to close programs easily at hand. It gives me better control over "rogue" apps. I only use it for a few programs though, like the Engadget app. It seems to be poorly coded, often using 40-50% CPU when running in the background.
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I like it because it lets me close frozen apps quicker..

the_Calen said:
i like the placebo effect and stop telling me what i have to do or not to do!
your writing style is to aggressive, stop being aggressive!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lol yes. Not to be taken too seriously.
Force closing apps with the task manager when somethings wrong with the phone or closing broken apps makes sense. I'm just talking about people that instinctively press the close all apps button every time they use the phone for a second. It's just silly. Basically doing what those automatic task killing apps do.

I use to kill opera everytime i'm done with browsing because even in idle mode the phone gets very hot when opera runs in the backgtound. But after these explanstions i stop force killing every app
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If a program is badly written and won't stay idle, then kill it.
I am very selective about what I install, and never kill or need to kill anything.
You have 1 GB of ram on this phone. If you want best battery and speed, don't kill anything. loading a running app from ram uses less power than starting from scratch and booting it from nand, then starting it up.
So if apps are well written, don't kill them. If stuff stays around causing drain, kill it individually but find a better app

This thread is spot on... for the most part. Like Pulser said, there are apps when idling/cached, cause detrimental effects like the one I detailed here causing your phone to stay Awake constantly and draining battery:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1094666
ATK isn't the most elegant method, but it allows you to put everything else on ignore and have it actively kill the apps that love to stay cached and cause issues even after you've exited out of them.

Is there a way to "lock" some apps into a memory so they never quit by the android OS except if I would decide to?
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You have a valid point, but most of the time those apps don't do anything critical that it would hurt to interrupt. I usually prefer to exit them normally, but sometimes I just kill it, like when I forgot the Messages / Internet open. No need to paranoia though, leaving a few open won't kill your battery.

PINki92 said:
Is there a way to "lock" some apps into a memory so they never quit by the android OS except if I would decide to?
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's exactly what I needed. There are some apps, like SetCPU, TB, Root Explorer, which can be added to SuperUser authorization and it won't get killed by anything unless someone manually kills it. I'd really really like to know how to add an app under SuperUser or anything which will do the job to add the app in to the OS and which can't be killed by any Task Killer or anything.
Besides I also hate those Task Killer apps, they are meaningless unless an user do nothing regularly with his/her phone.
I've no Task Killer installed but once I used the built in Memory Clear feature and next day my schedule app got closed. From then I never touched it. But one thing if RAM usage goes above 400 MB I think sometime its good to clear the memory as it will help to refresh it. But Samsung should had put the Memory Clear feature more precisely.
Regards.
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