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Hi
Ive just got this app (really to save myself some battery time)
On launching for the first time it presents me with a whole bunch of stuff including my clocks
Now i'm sure this maybe a pretty dumb question but if i kill the htc clock App will that stop the time and weather updating correctly? (i have my weather set to update hourly) and also if i kill any app like K-9 or Peep (that i have an update schedule set for) will it stop that schedule till i manually launch the app again or will it auto launch when it reaches the sheduled update time?
Sorry for the (potentially) stupid questions
Cheers
The only thing you're going to achieve with using a task killer, is lowering performance and causing even worse battery drain. If that's what you want to do, fine, but otherwise, I wouldn't bother if I were you.
Here's why:
Android's memory management is nothing like Windows Mobile. Applications you've finished with are MEANT to stay in memory until they really are completely finished with, and just because YOU aren't using them, doesn't mean the phone has. If they've been inactive long enough, or some other program needs the RAM, Android will tidily close them down.
If you close them prematurely, then Android will have to load them back up again, so that whatever was using said program's services, can continue to function. This noticeably affects phone performance, and puts an extra load on your battery. Do you REALLY want to do that?
I'm not using any task killers, and my phone runs great, and battery is up to 2.5 days.
Hmm interesting, i might try that, im killing all instantly and repeately, thanks for the tip
FloatingFatMan said:
The only thing you're going to achieve with using a task killer, is lowering performance and causing even worse battery drain. If that's what you want to do, fine, but otherwise, I wouldn't bother if I were you.
Here's why:
Android's memory management is nothing like Windows Mobile. Applications you've finished with are MEANT to stay in memory until they really are completely finished with, and just because YOU aren't using them, doesn't mean the phone has. If they've been inactive long enough, or some other program needs the RAM, Android will tidily close them down.
If you close them prematurely, then Android will have to load them back up again, so that whatever was using said program's services, can continue to function. This noticeably affects phone performance, and puts an extra load on your battery. Do you REALLY want to do that?
I'm not using any task killers, and my phone runs great, and battery is up to 2.5 days.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats correct.
I installed it on the phone, and the battery was empty the same night
Uninstalled it, and all works fine now.
Greetz.
would an app like task panel work?
you can add apps that are system apps etc to the ignore list and have apps such as games on the force to kill list or is it just best not to have any task killer apps installed at all?
its strange that there are so many task killer apps and its bad to run on your device. There must be some reason as to why there is an app for this purpose?
ragmanchu said:
would an app like task panel work?
you can add apps that are system apps etc to the ignore list and have apps such as games on the force to kill list or is it just best not to have any task killer apps installed at all?
its strange that there are so many task killer apps and its bad to run on your device. There must be some reason as to why there is an app for this purpose?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They exist, because people think memory management on Android works like it does on Windows Mobile. It doesn't, and never has. Think if it like the so called "memory manager" tools you can get for XP that claim to be able to free all your RAM and speed up your system... Every single one of them is nothing but a placebo designed to part you from your cash, and often end up CAUSING problems, just like task killers on Android do.
Avoid them.
FloatingFatMan said:
They exist, because people think memory management on Android works like it does on Windows Mobile. It doesn't, and never has. Think if it like the so called "memory manager" tools you can get for XP that claim to be able to free all your RAM and speed up your system... Every single one of them is nothing but a placebo designed to part you from your cash, and often end up CAUSING problems, just like task killers on Android do.
Avoid them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Guess thats a good enough reply lol
task killers can work fine, but you need to know what is running and what is using it.
for example, if you have the music widget on the homescreens, then the music player process will be opne in the background.
likewise friendstream will keep people, facebook and twitter open in the background.
if you kill those processes, they will just get opened again.
As long as you are careful, using task managers will not decrease battery life, you just need to know how to use them properly. randomly killing everything in the background is NOT the way to do it.
and you should never close clock if you want your alarm clock to actually go off!!
Might be worth making a list of what apps should be ignored and what apps can be forced killed?
When i had an app killer installed, i used to only force kill games and sat nav apps, the rest i asked it to ignore but after reading this thread, i decided to delete the app killer app =)
Ive put a bunch of stuff like clock, weather, Peep and facebook etc on the ignore list and have used the task killer to only kill off frivolous apps like Spark (for xbox friends) streamfurious, photos etc...Nothing Major!
I unhooked my phone from the power at 7:30 am on the 13th April, its now 16:36 on the 14th april and it still has 30% of the juice left, and i always have wifi and mobile data connection on too...phone is always left on with facebook connecting ever 4 hrs and peep once a day and mail set for every 2 hrs (besides which i do check and update them manually a couple of times a day)
I'll try all this without task killer installed and test how long the phone can run before charging
As you say, it could well be a combination of the battery coming up to speed and a placebo effect.
However, surely it cant do more harm than good to kill an app like Spark !
However, im no Phone Genius so im sure someone will soon tell me that im completely wrong
But so far so good....like i said, ill test things without task killer installed
I've stopped using the task killer now and my battery life has improved very noticably.
oursoul said:
I've stopped using the task killer now and my battery life has improved very noticably.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
im not so sure about this.
im using a task killer when i want to close the browser or something using internet, as we all know internet drains a lot of battery and even if the browser or market is in the background it still probably has some active connections = draining battery
cez10 said:
im using a task killer when i want to close the browser or something using internet, as we all know internet drains a lot of battery and even if the browser or market is in the background it still probably has some active connections = draining battery
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you want to close fast the browser or any app, you should have a try at taskOS and launch it with the search key whenever you want...
Binned this app in favour of Juice defender, my new battery saving app of choice, seems to be working as it should too...nice
profete162 said:
If you want to close fast the browser or any app, you should have a try at taskOS and launch it with the search key whenever you want...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
but then that works pretty much like a task killer
can anyone correct me about the apps i.e. browser using internet while not active(in background) is this true or not? of course having the sync/updates turned off
Task killers can be handy for those times when apps seem to have crashed but aren't forcing close. for example, i've had times where ebuddy just doesn't want to even try to sign in. Task kill it. Try again. all is well. And last my internet browser wouldn't let me click any buttons. Again, killed it - restarted - all is ok.
I've had to use such an app countless of times due to unwanted/unneeded apps running, hanging FCs and black screens, checking/closing net related or sensor using apps, and numerous times when 300KB apps wouldn't install citing 'low memory' when I have more than 70MB free, but it was the RAM being near full causing FCs in apps like Market, and halting the installs. I only use Androids built-in TaskPanel widget for this though. Everything routine is set over to the ignore list so that I don't accidently hit and close that (single hit closes the app). Additionally I use this app to check and to switch to an opened application that is running (when it's not in the recent list).
Sent from my HTC Desire using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk
profete162 said:
If you want to close fast the browser or any app, you should have a try at taskOS and launch it with the search key whenever you want...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is the route I've taken naturally. I'm using jkAppSwitch on my longpress search key, mainly used for switching but can be used to kill problem apps.
Full task killers are being proven to be useless on the Desire.
I would recommend using an app that monitors the cpu usage(watchdog etc.). This way your can see which apps put a drain on your phone.
Thank you for the information. But I do notice a considerable improvement in battery power with Advanced Task Killer.
I hope someone can provide me an answer.
while phone looks like its sleeping the apps are still working and using the processing power for whatever they are doing there behind the black screen.
and theres alot of apps that need to sync or update or pull data off the internetz
would that be a possible issue of standby battery drain?
i mean i can turn my phone on at random times and there will be 10-20 apps running in the background when i didnt even use them.
they just start check something and sut back down.
can i stop the apps from autolaunching?
remove task killer and run auto killer .. also use autorun killer to stop certain apps from starting. I would caution you to be careful what apps you stop. You make cause important apps not to work.
fuzzysig said:
while phone looks like its sleeping the apps are still working and using the processing power for whatever they are doing there behind the black screen.
and theres alot of apps that need to sync or update or pull data off the internetz
would that be a possible issue of standby battery drain?
i mean i can turn my phone on at random times and there will be 10-20 apps running in the background when i didnt even use them.
they just start check something and sut back down.
can i stop the apps from autolaunching?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If there are apps running its cause they have a task to do. You can manually change your syncing to stop these apps from starting. Also try autokiller and set it to aggressive. This way the apps continue there task and android shuts them down faster than normal
Thanks for the tip. I have both running. I haven't stooped any apps from running with autorun killer, I'm hoping it does it on its own. The other is set on aggressive.
Sent from my HTC HD2 using XDA App
I have a lot of apps opening up in the background on their own and eating up my memory. Things like qik, skype, city id, vz navigator open on their own even though I barely use them, if at all. My free memory keeps dropping down to around 30mb. Is there anything I can do?
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App
The best remedy I came up with was rooting my phone, and then installing Titanium Backup and Autostarts. Titanium can freeze the apps you never want to use like some of the crapware that comes preinstalled. For the apps that you do use, but don't want automatically opening all the time, you can use Autostarts to choose which conditions must be met for the app to open, or not open in this case. For both of those applications, you need to be rooted, and unfortunately that's the only way I know of to stop some of the apps you mentioned (especially Skype and CityID).
You can root to remove the bloatware, but that's it. Also, memory on android isn't the same as on a PC. With a PC, clear memory means a faster system, but the opposite is true for android. Because of the way it manages applications, you want to keep the memory as full as possible.
mlclm said:
You can root to remove the bloatware, but that's it. Also, memory on android isn't the same as on a PC. With a PC, clear memory means a faster system, but the opposite is true for android. Because of the way it manages applications, you want to keep the memory as full as possible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
dwray said:
The best remedy I came up with was rooting my phone, and then installing Titanium Backup and Autostarts. Titanium can freeze the apps you never want to use like some of the crapware that comes preinstalled. For the apps that you do use, but don't want automatically opening all the time, you can use Autostarts to choose which conditions must be met for the app to open, or not open in this case. For both of those applications, you need to be rooted, and unfortunately that's the only way I know of to stop some of the apps you mentioned (especially Skype and CityID).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is the answer. There is a difference in night and day with my X since installed Autostarts and Fission.
If you install Autostarts and use Advanced Task Killer you will be able to kill the apps and they won't continue to run/open in the background. It's extremely worth it.
wad3g said:
This is the answer. There is a difference in night and day with my X since installed Autostarts and Fission.
If you install Autostarts and use Advanced Task Killer you will be able to kill the apps and they won't continue to run/open in the background. It's extremely worth it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Search android task killers on these forums. Then listen to the posts and let android do its thing.
Task killers bog down the system because these apps are shut down while attempting to do something (sync, send data, etc). The app then realizes that it needs to complete the process and restarts. This continues over and over hogging your cpu resources and slowing down the system.
Stop paying attention to the free memory and open apps. This is not an iPhone.
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App
AdhvanIt said:
Search android task killers on these forums. Then listen to the posts and let android do its thing.
Task killers bog down the system because these apps are shut down while attempting to do something (sync, send data, etc). The app then realizes that it needs to complete the process and restarts. This continues over and over hogging your cpu resources and slowing down the system.
Stop paying attention to the free memory and open apps. This is not an iPhone.
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Except you can put exceptions into what apps to kill.
EtherBoo said:
Except you can put exceptions into what apps to kill.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Read this
http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/
Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
AdhvanIt said:
Search android task killers on these forums. Then listen to the posts and let android do its thing.
Task killers bog down the system because these apps are shut down while attempting to do something (sync, send data, etc). The app then realizes that it needs to complete the process and restarts. This continues over and over hogging your cpu resources and slowing down the system.
Stop paying attention to the free memory and open apps. This is not an iPhone.
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're missing the point. Autostarts doesn't allow the app to start in the first place so it doesn't bog down the system or hog resources.
Correct me if I'm wrong but is it not Gingerbread that has added the addition of a task killer.
It's not about the free memory, my phone runs faster. I can tell a difference.
It's possible we may be talking about different things.
I'm pretty sure closing Angry Birds when it's still open because I Home Screen buttoned out of it won't make a big difference.
If you're referring to closing services while they're running, it's a different story. I skimmed through the article, it looks interesting, but I honestly fail to see how closing an app that's running... even one that might be doing something I don't want it to (like using GPS because it didn't close when I back-arrowed out of it).
When I bought my phone, I installed Weather Bug. Weather Bug kept trying to get my GPS location while I was at work. My phone barely made it through work. Anytime I checked the weather, I had to close the program through a task killer, or I'd have no battery because the phone was trying to use my GPS all day.
How does not closing that save my battery?
EtherBoo said:
It's possible we may be talking about different things.
I'm pretty sure closing Angry Birds when it's still open because I Home Screen buttoned out of it won't make a big difference.
If you're referring to closing services while they're running, it's a different story. I skimmed through the article, it looks interesting, but I honestly fail to see how closing an app that's running... even one that might be doing something I don't want it to (like using GPS because it didn't close when I back-arrowed out of it).
When I bought my phone, I installed Weather Bug. Weather Bug kept trying to get my GPS location while I was at work. My phone barely made it through work. Anytime I checked the weather, I had to close the program through a task killer, or I'd have no battery because the phone was trying to use my GPS all day.
How does not closing that save my battery?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's not a valid comparison. The android system manages apps, but it doesn't monitor everything that they're doing to prevent a runaway (like weatherbug). Actually read the article, then comment on it. And you do know you can turn gps off, right?
I happen to like GPS, and as long as I don't have any runaways, it doesn't drain battery since it's not used.
I'm just saying, for programs like that, Task Killers are great.
I'll read it tomorrow most likely.
I tried Watchdog and a few other task killers before finally shelling out the money for the full version of Titanium. I found that often times, the biggest cpu hog and battery killer was the task killer itself since it has to be constantly running in the background. For apps that you use on a regular basis, the best remedy for saving battery life is to just change the update interval period. By default, a lot of widgets (especially weather) update every 15 minutes, which can be a little tasking on system resources at times. I set mine to 1 hour and that helped tremendously. The main reason I went to the full version of Titanium is because it accomplishes what task killers can't by freezing apps to deny their access to open at all. Instead of removing the bloatware like CityID, VZ Navigator, and others, which will keep your phone from receiving OTA updates, just freeze them and you'll never have to worry about them. Autostarts takes care of the rest for me by allowing full control over the condition changes on the device which trigger certain applications to open. For example, I may use Google goggles occassionally, but I don't want it to automatically open in the background just because I enabled GPS. Before rooting my phone, I would normally average between 14 to 18 hours on moderate usage (with a task killer running I might add). Now, with those two applications managing things more meticulously, and chaning the update interval for all of my widgets, I get around 30 to 36 hours easily.
There seems to be an issue with the stock browser not remaining idle in memory after I press the home button
This seems to happen when multiple pages are loaded. In idle, the stock browser continues using CPU!
Anyone experiencing this?
How do you know it continues using CPU ?
By looking at the stock task manager!
The CPU usage ticks away for the browser
So close it with Task Manager, what's the problem? Stock browser doesn't have an exit option.
The problem is, why would I keep monitoring the program to see if it is using CPU power if it is supposed to be idle?
Well if you stop from Task Manager it will not be idle.
Android task killing is not recommended, so what gives?!
Now what does that mean? You have to exit it from Task Manger when you don't need it, pressing home button will never close it.
I know... but I was under the impression that manual monitoring of apps that are supposed to be in idle is unnecessary as people who advise against using task killers say that it is actually better for the operation of the Android OS as a whole, and killing apps is bad, since when home button is pressed, the apps actually lie dormant and do nothing
The issue now is I noticed the internet browser is still using CPU power, when it is supposed to be dormant. Of course I know the task manager can kill it, but I try not to kill the program!
Mate I am amazed by your thought. Some users say that don't use ATK or 3rd party Task Killer apps, but they NEVER say don't use the in built Task Manager. Jeez man, you don't wanna Exit an app because of some technical comment, unbelievable.
Regards.
The point being I don't wanna keep checking the task manager to see if the stock browser is using CPU power, that's the whole point of how Android is supposed to work, that is, if the app is in the background, it is supposed to idle and not consume power!
Just wondering why is it the stock browser is consuming power when it's supposed to be dormant
Well .. try to have the browser in background overnight .. and then check the battery statistics how much battery it did consumed over time ..
If you have background downloading set to ON in Android settings, and if the browser is on a site that's set to auto-refresh, it'll keep working in the background. That's by design and completely normal.
If you don't want this, make sure no auto-refreshing site is active in the browser before you send it to the background, or simply disable background downloading.
ithehappy said:
Mate I am amazed by your thought. Some users say that don't use ATK or 3rd party Task Killer apps, but they NEVER say don't use the in built Task Manager. Jeez man, you don't wanna Exit an app because of some technical comment, unbelievable.
Regards.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A lot of people advice against killing applications with task manager for good reasons, except for ill-behaving applications of course. How have you managed to miss those threads?
Killing an application prevents the "exit"-routine in the application from running so it cannot do want it wants to do when it shuts down (maybe storing settings/data to flash etc). Killing applications with task manager in Android is like killing applications in Windows with the task manager, something you shouldn't need to do.
So the question is if the stock browser is ill-behaving or if this is a normal behaviour. If this is just for a short while and then the browser stops using CPU then this isn't a problem.
If an application won't exit correctly when stopped from task manager, it most probably won't exit correctly when the phone is being turned off. Does it mean you can't turn the phone off ?
This is actually true for windows too.
tjtj4444 said:
Killing applications with task manager in Android is like killing applications in Windows with the task manager, something you shouldn't need to do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well buddy I really can't take the comparison between a PC and a Mobile phone. A PC never has a battery problem, neither RAM problem, if 1000+ apps are running on background, which exists on Mobile phone. I listen to Music while playing Crysis 2. GS II is a powerful device, a damn powerful one, but comparing it or it's Task Manager with a PC is kiddish IMO.
Anyway, I just meant to OP that he/she should press the 'Exit' option in Task Manager after it gets minimized to completely close the Browser.
Regards.
rantzzz said:
The point being I don't wanna keep checking the task manager to see if the stock browser is using CPU power, that's the whole point of how Android is supposed to work, that is, if the app is in the background, it is supposed to idle and not consume power!
Just wondering why is it the stock browser is consuming power when it's supposed to be dormant
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
agreed! would be very interesting to see how much does it consume overnight!
ithehappy said:
Well buddy I really can't take the comparison between a PC and a Mobile phone. A PC never has a battery problem, neither RAM problem, if 1000+ apps are running on background, which exists on Mobile phone. I listen to Music while playing Crysis 2. GS II is a powerful device, a damn powerful one, but comparing it or it's Task Manager with a PC is kiddish IMO.
Anyway, I just meant to OP that he/she should press the 'Exit' option in Task Manager after it gets minimized to completely close the Browser.
Regards.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, but the task manager in Android and Windows are very similar in more or less every way. And regarding "A PC never has battery problem" makes me laugh, have you heard about laptops and netbooks? With a CPU with 35W TDP in a standard laptop it is pretty important with well behaved applications in a PC as well.
I remember when I had problems with Word on my PC and often had to kill Word, I got tons of backup files laying around in my folders, and I often had to deal with the annoying document recovery at startup, you get similar unexpected issues with Android applications. It is easy to get corrupt files and end up in strange applications states if applications aren't able to shutdown properly.
Killing the stock browser is an ugly work-around, better than doing nothing if it drains the battery a lot though.
So my point is that this is an interesting thing to investigate, this is after all XDA, we should understand if the stock browser drains the battery or not, and also understand why (for some reason Flash comes to mind...).
on nexus phones when i minimize the browser with multiple windows open, then monitor CPU usage, it is dead flat using zero cpu. so there is definitely a problem if the SGS2 browser is doing something. dont listen to anyone saying to just kill it with a task manager. that's not the point. are you supposed to kill the browser 30 times a day everytime you are done doing something with it? of course not, that's insanity.
my suggestion is to monitor the browser 5 minutes after you minimized it and see if it still continues to burn CPU. my hunch is that after a few minutes it should go to zero usage.
aydc said:
If you have background downloading set to ON in Android settings, and if the browser is on a site that's set to auto-refresh, it'll keep working in the background. That's by design and completely normal.
If you don't want this, make sure no auto-refreshing site is active in the browser before you send it to the background, or simply disable background downloading.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
this is completely wrong. the stock browser will NOT auto refresh in the background. it is specifically coded such that if you are loading a webpage and switch to the homescreen in the middle of loading, the web page will finish loading and then the browser will remain frozen and not do anything until the next time the user returns to the browser. this is well documented.
Basically, I went into Settings>Apps>Running and realised I don't want Facebook in there ever unless I actually open the app. I opened the Facebook app Settings and disabled Notifications off. Also Messenger Location Services is off too. Each time I try and kill the process or reboot it comes back.
Things that load that I want to permanently disable unless I actually open the specific app:
Facebook
Maps
Google Play Store
I use Titanium to put a widget on my screen where I can freeze and unfreeze that app. I have done it with maps and some other programs that were aggressive in their communications. Unfreeze them, open and use, refreeze when done.
Thanks grubbster.
Any other options available to me?
Other than ignoring it, you can kill the app each time you close it. There's a developmental setting that shuts down the apps (not sure if it's in Cyanogenmod only or just stock) because it doesn't keep anything in the background. This would close ANY app that's not holding forground view however.
I'll just leave it as it is to be honest. Just thought there was a quick way of doing it similar to how the MSCONFIG utility operates in Windows.
MSCONFIG does that for startup, there are apps that block apps from starting up in android too but those apps need to be running as well which defeats the whole purpose of having plenty of RAM in the first place..
The whole point is Android manages the background apps just fine. Having 2GB of RAM but wanting 1.6GB to be free all the time (200MB used by GPU AFAIK so you are left with 1.8GB) is not the smartest way to manage apps. You want them snappy, in and out and done. Apps sitting in memory doesn't use more power because the RAM is active even as long as it's plugged into the the motherboard.