Develop Bugs

[Q] Whats the final verdict with "APP KILLERS"

I read and watch so many contradicting things about this subject, I just cannot seem to understand the truth..
I know Android works off of a linux type of OS, and that the memory function is superior to many others..
I read that having any app killer is actually bad because it drains your battery even more than if you don't have it, that the apps running in the background aren't really running as the memory or most of it is now running the application you're using.
Now what if the app killer program has a function that lets you disable the auto kill, I assume that is the part that runs and drains the battery?
would it be good then? or is it still bad?
Finally if so, do I even bother to close out the applications after a full days use?
It just seems very confusing when a large group of people tell you NO and a large group of people tell you YES.
and its reputable places too, not just amatures
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVWZFNHq0uQ

I would just like to add to your confusion by saying that I read that the new Android 2.2 API disables the ability to "kill" apps. It can kill background services or something to that effect, so the program is still in memory, but not actively performing operations or something. That's all paraphrased from a 3 month old memory, so take it with a grain of salt, but if that is true, is there any point to a Task Killer if you have Froyo?

Actually, thinking about a reply gave me a good idea. More on that some other time
Long story short: it all depends.
Short story long:
Anyways, task killers are not inheritly bad, but they are "dangerous". How dangerous depends entirely on how you use them. In general I would say, if you have a device with sufficient memory available, I would only use a task manager to manually kill games (only) that you played but are no longer playing, or some apps if you understand what they do and how they work. Generally we refer to task killers that do not have an automatic component as task managers instead of killers.
One danger is how the app is killed. If it is not killed "gracefully" corruption may occur. This is very rare to occur, though. Apps will almost always be killed gracefully.
Another danger is killing apps that are tied to background services. In most task killers (if not all) there is no way to see if they have such a background service. What most task killer display is actually only visible components of applications. However, killing them will also kill the background services. This may prompt Android to just restart it, but this time invisibly, and you just wasted quite some CPU (not to mention time) to save a little bit of memory you won't miss. Some services are hefty on the initialization but light on running on purpose, and this will make the effect bigger. Another option is that the service simply no longer runs -as it is NOT restarted- and some part of your phone may not behave as you expect it to. Common sense helps here. For example, you could kill the browser like this, but killing a system service app like (I assume) SetCPU, JuiceDefender, etc will generally be a bad idea. Automated task killers do not usually distinguish between these.
Now, Android's internal killer does distinguish between these things (and many more important factors). Say you are in this situation:
- A is running in the foreground
- B is in the background and has a service
- C is in the background
- D is in the background
If we run low on memory, Android will kill C and D before killing B, and it will kill B before killing A. Which is pretty much exactly how we want it done. Android will know when it is necessary to do this. An automated task killer may for example kill B. But B might automatically restart it's invisible parts. Then the automated task killer is in the same situation again, and will shortly after that kill C or D. This operation just wasted a whole bunch of CPU cycles!
Keep in mind, that if an application is not specifically built to do something while it is not in the foreground (i.e. directly visible on your screen), it will not actually be executing any code at all. It will just take up some memory. This is a good thing, because if you go to this app again it will still be exactly as you left it, without the app having to go through all the loading and initialization steps again. How much effect that has depends on the app, obviously. You should see this more as a cache, or ramdisk, or something similar. Well-built apps do generally not have a negative effect on CPU or battery use when they are not in the foreground. They would only use background resources if truely needed.
There is no noticable negative side effect on battery to this. If Android needs the memory and it doesn't have any to spare (for example for your foreground application), it will simply kill off one or more of the background applications.
Also keep in mind that if you "close" an app by using the back button, on many devices and ROMs this will actually close the application instead of keeping it in the background. There is no foreward button, after all.
Now, to the battery issue. I have seen, heard, and read endless complaints by many users regarding poor battery life, RAM being full (there is hardly any reason to care, on a proper firmware), etc. and that these task killers help them. The fact is, that 95 times out of 100 these users are running "a bunch of crap". Because make no mistake, there are a lot of crap apps, widgets, even complete custom ROMs out there. Using system resources when they don't need to, using background services when they don't need to, constantly polling data instead of being event based, etc. Just badly done stuff.
Finding the culprit is often difficult, though in my personal experience (your mileage may vary) the culprit is most often a app+widget combo rather than a bar app. That is, unless you install a serious hack (again, like CPU speed managers, battery savers, etc) and configure them exactly how they shouldn't be configured for your usage situation, with all the resulting adverse effects. When someone I know personally has these issues, the first thing I have them do is uninstall all apps that provide widgets. You would be surprised how often that has solved the issue altogether.
Automated task killers are a band-aid solution in these cases. Of course, there also exist cases of improperly configured Android memory management in the firmware, and if you have a device with very little RAM this can also be problematic, but these are much less common than the user installing crappy stuff (though sometimes it is the carrier with bad bloatware). Usually, automated task killers just fight symptoms, not the cause.
My advice would definitely be, check what you're running and what you install. If you're a bit techsavvy, use a task manager, but only kill tasks manually. Never "kill all" unless absolutely necessary, and don't run it automated unless you are absolutely sure the developer is worth his salt. Even then, don't make a habit out of killing apps manually. Do make a habit out of exiting apps (especially games) with the back button, instead of for example using the home button to switch to the app launcher.
A case can be made for manually killing apps as it gives you more control over what is killed when, but the time you would spend doing it is worth more than what you would save (generally). Also keep in mind that the automated task killer itself will also be running a background process to check on your situation and kill apps, and thus may actually be part of the problem instead of the solution.
@nukedukem: I'm running Froyo and the task manager I'm using kills apps just fine when I tell it to do so...

I say they are bad unless you have rogue apps. And even then they are not needed. Hit Menu-Settings-Applications-Manage Apps-Running Tab-Click App-Kill. But instead of that, you can make a widget on your homescreen that goes straight to it. Long press homescreen-shortcuts-settings-manage applications. Done. I use that when I want to kill a game or something eating CPU. Otherwise I just let Android do its thing. Also, I like Watchdog Lite. It monitors apps using the CPU and alerts you when one exceeds the threshold and gives you option to kill or ignore(app may have a legitimate reason for hogging CPU) the app in question. This is good because app or processes are really only hurting or effecting the battery when they are using the CPU, not RAM. However, another option for task management is Autokiller in the Market. It allows you to change Android's minfree settings, or internal task manager, to kill off apps sooner. I set mine to be aggressive. I actually never worry about task management. Unless Watchdog beeps at me. I think the last time I killed an app was 3 weeks ago. I remember the day Autokiller came out well. I had the HTC Hero back then. To do what that app does I had to change them manually each boot and eventually a script was made to change the settings. Those early days of Android were so much fun. ;D
If anymore questions let us know.

They are just like everything, use in moderation. I use mine all the time but I don't mess with system services and only use it to kill stuff I've been using.
And yes they still work in 2.2 as long as the app is not active

[Q] Dose installing many apps drain the battery more quickly

I have heard somewhere that installing many apps can drain the battery more quickly
I just want to know wheter or not installing apps that are not running in the background drains the battery?.
Thanks.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda premium

Not if they are not running in the background
Some people have installed more than 300 apps (user apps)
scribbled from my note 2 (N7100)

It's no different than your computer. You can have 50000 apps installed, but only the ones running consume active (ram, battery, network) resources.
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I would love to help you, but help yourself first: ask a better question
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Be aware though that many do run in the background even if you haven't run them.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using XDA Premium HD app

In General Yes, but I'd say depends on the apps, if there are 200 quality apps, (however I don't know how many are there in Play Store), and you've not turned on the background data for them, then it might not drain much. But if you've even 5 crap apps installed then they'll be enough Culprit to hog the juice more than those 200 apps.
In short, DO NOT install crap apps, do not install whatever you see. Read user reviews, see ratings, then decide. I, for me, think 3 times before installing one, even if it comes from a Top Developer tag.

Yes it does take more battery. So install the apps which you are going to use.

AlanDS said:
Yes it does take more battery. So install the apps which you are going to use.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you please back this up? Used storage doesn't increase battery usage.
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I would love to help you, but help yourself first: ask a better question
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

It totally depends on applications you have installed
If you have hundreds of application and they don't autostarts or have no sync function and just occupying storage, it won't drain battery, in usual course i do have 150 user application installed but hardly it even drains recordable juice except some of it requires auto refreshing and sync
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda premium

There are application that can disable the apps you've installed from auto starting or running in the background. Usually the biggest culprits are the free ad supported apps that tend to randomly call up even when the phone is in sleep mode. There are many ways to stop it from happening.. If you can pay for ad free app then go for it otherwise a lot of 3rd party apps will allow you to disable those features. I don't understand why someone would install 200-300apps in the first place when you only end up using less than a quarter of those. I guess its that "you never know when you're gonna need it" habits.
Sent from the Rabbit Hole

There are a number of apps which do run in the background, even when you don't manually run them first. Applications can register receivers to trigger at various events (such as boot-up complete, call ended, etc) and complete tasks in the background, or register themselves as services. You can check these with an autostart app, or I use ROM Toolbox (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jrummy.liberty.toolboxpro&hl=en - there is a free version available too).
On top of that, apps can also run scheduled tasks which can wake the phone out of deep sleep in standby, which can cause additional battery drain, through either CPU or network usage.
Unlike iOS which kills most background apps after a couple of minutes, Android apps can run indefinitely in the background, unless of course they are killed by memory management first.

Greenify!

No more envy of your friends' iPhone which never become slow and battery hungry after lots of apps installed. With Greenify, your Android device can also run almost as smooth and lasting as the first day you have it!
Greenify help you identify and put the bad behaving apps into hibernation when you are not using them, stop them from battery leeching, memory hogging and stealthy running, in an elegant and unique way! They could do nothing without your explicit launch, while still have full functionality when running in foreground. Like what iOS apps act!
The built-in App Analyzer will analyze and show apps in your device that keep running persistent services and those launch itself automatically on a regular basis (when network connectivity changes, or every time you unlock your device, install / uninstall / update your apps, etc).
ROOT is required. If you are experiencing hibernation issue, this may be caused by your root management app (e.g. "SuperUser"), please try installing "SuperSU" instead.
here is the link
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.oasisfeng.greenify ( you can download it from attachments too !! )
There is also a donate version which lets you put system apps for hibernating as well!
Here's the link for that..
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.oasisfeng.greenify.pro
Give it a try people and don't forget to thank the owner and me if I have helped..
OP I have removed the apk because the developer only wants it to be downloaded from the playstore (yours was the old version anyway). Here's the link Please don't do that again. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2155737

Cool app! Missed this one until now. I'm wondering if there any advantages/disadvantages to "Greenifying" apps compared with "Freezing" apps with Titanium Backup. It seems that Titanium's freezing requires more work on the user's part. Their widget that freezes/unfreezes and launches and app is very similar. The difference is that I have to manually REFREEZE the app when done. Is this correct? If so, this is a wonderful app. Still testing...just installed. THANK YOU!

You are correct! I used to use titanium b/u pro.. But like u say, it requires much user attention and input. I much prefer greenify, and I seem to get better battery life with it too (likely because of the automation, thus less screen-on time = better batt life). Not sure if it gives better performance, cause I don't push my phone very much, and it was already fast as hell with tbp.. I'm running soa b4 right now, previously jmt6 worked great with both. Hope this helps
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-T989 using xda app-developers app

Update: just from modifying my greenify list a bit and switching to interactive governor, am now getting 5-6 hrs screen on time.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-T989 using xda app-developers app

I don't know if I'm seeing much difference with this app. I have been using it for some time already, but most of my battery hogging apps (according to the greenify app) are messaging apps, tapatalk, etc that needs to notify me when it needs to. If I greenify these, I won't get any notification from them, right? Is this correct?
If so, then i'm not sure if will see much difference in battery life anyway..

I get a full 12 hour day with 20%+ left by 10pm
Sent from my SGH-T989 using xda app-developers app

Task killers and hibernation

Android experts all say task killers are unnecessary (except to kill a misbehaving app) because the android OS is designed to use all the available memory and it costs as much battery power to maintain a memory containing nothing as memory containing something. So emptying memory by killing an app just causes android to immediately load something else (or the same app) back into memory.
My question therefore has to do with apps like Greenify, which "hibernate" apps till they are actively called. Is hibernation just another name for removing apps from memory and therefore as counter productive as task killers? I can see the subtle differences but they seem minor compared to the similarities.
What do the experts who know android say? I don't know enough to really know.
Any studies to show an advantage (battery, etc.) in using an app like Greenify vs not?
Thank you.
Jeff

For me, I tried all of those battery saver app, none of them actually significant save battery, plus they use up some of your ram. I read somewhere says that android itself can handle battery save plus manage apps in it memory just fine.
Nam Huy Linux http://namhuy.net

Task Killers use extra CPU cycles and can lead to loss of battery life.
I'm not sure about hibernation but I think it just prevents apps from being started automatically when the device is powered on and therefore saves battery and CPU.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium

Anderson2 said:
Android experts all say task killers are unnecessary (except to kill a misbehaving app) because the android OS is designed to use all the available memory and it costs as much battery power to maintain a memory containing nothing as memory containing something. So emptying memory by killing an app just causes android to immediately load something else (or the same app) back into memory.
My question therefore has to do with apps like Greenify, which "hibernate" apps till they are actively called. Is hibernation just another name for removing apps from memory and therefore as counter productive as task killers? I can see the subtle differences but they seem minor compared to the similarities.
What do the experts who know android say? I don't know enough to really know.
Any studies to show an advantage (battery, etc.) in using an app like Greenify vs not?
Thank you.
Jeff
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have to agree with task killers not really being necessary, especially with newer devices, for the most part. I've had and used ATK for years now and use it on occasion but by no means do I use it regularly. The only app I use that ever misbehaves is Google Voice, while deleting a bunch of texts it will on occasion hang up and need to be killed. The two scenarios I use it regularly is before playing "some" games and usually before using VLC before watching a video. When using VLC I will often pause, skip, rewind, fast forward and on occasion use slow motion to further investigate any milk shake, if it's looks to be worth my time. In those two scenarios I believe it does make a difference. Other than that I don't use ATK and it's not needed.
As for Greenify, I've been using it since it was first released and I won't hesitate to admit to being a big fan. You don't want to use it for everything. Any widgets that need to update or apps you want to get notifications from I would not hibernate, even though it is supposed to work with some notifications I personally have never tried it. Having said that I have a ton of apps that I do hibernate with Greenify. System and user apps. And if I remember right I believe the auto-hibernate works at some point in time after your screen has shut off. If I'm wrong someone please correct me! I also have to say that using Greenify is part of the reason I routinely see 1-2% battery use during 9-10 hrs of standby and I have Never had a problem with wakelocks. I think it is unrealistic to attribute good battery life to any one specific configuration setting or app, it's going to be a combination of multiple things. And I think Greenify is part of the puzzle along with wifi use, wifi configuration, LTE use, display brightness, sync frequency, location settings and so on. My N7 is not a good example because it gets used very hard almost everyday and I still typically see 5-7+ hrs of screen on time and as high as 9 but rarely. My N5 also typically between 5-7 hrs sot, often as high as 9 and once saw 11 hrs of screen on time. And... I actually have screenshots. I would say give Greenify a try, used properly you will see a benefit. For what it's not worth, just my two cents!

Thank you. I've also used Greenify for a long time but don't know enough to really evaluate its effectiveness. I have not however dared to use it for system apps because of the warnings.
Which system apps have you hibernated without problem?

Anderson2 said:
Thank you. I've also used Greenify for a long time but don't know enough to really evaluate its effectiveness. I have not however dared to use it for system apps because of the warnings.
Which system apps have you hibernated without problem?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Google search, chrome, keep, news and weather (don't really use), youtube. Google play books, games, movies, music, Google+ and Hangouts I have disabled because I use other apps but those could very well be hibernated except for Google+ and Hangouts (notifications).
I missed currents, email, korean keyboard, google pinyin, iWinnIME, google play magazines which I have disabled also but any of those could be hibernated.

Thank you.

Anderson2 said:
Thank you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No problem. I just realized I show google search in my list of apps I hibernate but I should mention that I don't use google now. If you do you probably want to leave google search alone if you want google now notifications.

That's fine. I don't use Google search, google plus, Hangouts, etc. Etc. Either but was afraid to disable them because of potential problems when the next system update comes. How do you disable them? Titanium b/U or something else?
(I'm rooted).

How can increase the performance and battery life for Note Pro

HI ALL,
I will root my device , but I want to know how to increase its performance and speed and reduce RAM usage?
and what is the best browser for Android for fast browsing and low memory usage?

Most of the speed increasing and RAM decreasing can be done without root. Replacing Touchwiz with Apex or Nova Launcher is the first step that makes the most difference. Disable most of the bloatware and turn down animations in developer options.

This post probably belongs in the Q&A section, not the software one.
Reduction in RAM usage doesn't necessarily equate to performance boost. Android memory management does a good job of keeping things running smoothly so the goal of debloating should not be to free up RAM. To maximize performance with regards to memory usage with Android what you'll want to do is debloat your device to the point that applications that you'll never use are no longer loading into memory automatically (either as active applications or cached) which will allow other frequently used applications a chance to load into RAM/cache for quick response times. Running memory management software is also counter productive as it will battle against Android's own memory management and kill background applications that you may want cached for quicker response when needed.
Personally I WANT RAM to fill up because if I'm jumping from application to application I don't want to wait for things to load from storage into RAM. I also refrain from cache cleaning frequently because I have a particular routine when I use my device (frequenting particular websites and using particular applications daily) so clearing cache frequently will only force my device to have to re-cache things unnecessarily.
Getting down to the nitty gritty of how to debloat, the approach I took for my device is to work with a few applications; SystemPanelLite Task Manager, Greenify, Boot Manager and Titanium Backup. I would clean boot my device and let it sit for a while (several minutes) to cache applications as it saw fit. I'd then pop into the system panel lite application and look at what was loaded into both active processes and cached. I'd evaluate each entry to determine for myself whether or not I wanted that application to load automatically or not OR NEVER. If the answer was never then I'd use Titanium Backup to freeze the application (of course for each app I'd do my research to see if it was serving an important function). If the answer was that I needed the application but not all of the time then I'd look into Greenifying it and also considered disabling it from starting at boot using boot manager.
I'd do the above iteratively until all I saw in RAM or cached were applications and services that I felt were important. Never during this process did I care how low memory usage was since the goal is to preload as much of the important stuff as possible.
In the end I ended up freezing a ton of Samsung apps, especially after uninstalling applications that relied on their own app store like Hancom.
Of course a quicker way to reduce bloat is to go to a ROM that someone else has debloated and start there as a base. I began my own debloating process early last year though so starting again on a ROM even if it already is debloated to a certain extent doesn't seem worth it for me at this time (but if a lollipop update rolls out and a ROM developer updates to that then I'll surely try it).
Sent from my SM-P900 using Tapatalk

ShadowLea said:
Most of the speed increasing and RAM decreasing can be done without root. Replacing Touchwiz with Apex or Nova Launcher is the first step that makes the most difference. Disable most of the bloatware and turn down animations in developer options.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks a lot man , I used nove launcher and its v nice , I guess need to root so I can freeze more apps as not all can be disabled using offical rom
muzzy996 said:
This post probably belongs in the Q&A section, not the software one.
Reduction in RAM usage doesn't necessarily equate to performance boost. Android memory management does a good job of keeping things running smoothly so the goal of debloating should not be to free up RAM. To maximize performance with regards to memory usage with Android what you'll want to do is debloat your device to the point that applications that you'll never use are no longer loading into memory automatically (either as active applications or cached) which will allow other frequently used applications a chance to load into RAM/cache for quick response times. Running memory management software is also counter productive as it will battle against Android's own memory management and kill background applications that you may want cached for quicker response when needed.
Personally I WANT RAM to fill up because if I'm jumping from application to application I don't want to wait for things to load from storage into RAM. I also refrain from cache cleaning frequently because I have a particular routine when I use my device (frequenting particular websites and using particular applications daily) so clearing cache frequently will only force my device to have to re-cache things unnecessarily.
Getting down to the nitty gritty of how to debloat, the approach I took for my device is to work with a few applications; SystemPanelLite Task Manager, Greenify, Boot Manager and Titanium Backup. I would clean boot my device and let it sit for a while (several minutes) to cache applications as it saw fit. I'd then pop into the system panel lite application and look at what was loaded into both active processes and cached. I'd evaluate each entry to determine for myself whether or not I wanted that application to load automatically or not OR NEVER. If the answer was never then I'd use Titanium Backup to freeze the application (of course for each app I'd do my research to see if it was serving an important function). If the answer was that I needed the application but not all of the time then I'd look into Greenifying it and also considered disabling it from starting at boot using boot manager.
I'd do the above iteratively until all I saw in RAM or cached were applications and services that I felt were important. Never during this process did I care how low memory usage was since the goal is to preload as much of the important stuff as possible.
In the end I ended up freezing a ton of Samsung apps, especially after uninstalling applications that relied on their own app store like Hancom.
Of course a quicker way to reduce bloat is to go to a ROM that someone else has debloated and start there as a base. I began my own debloating process early last year though so starting again on a ROM even if it already is debloated to a certain extent doesn't seem worth it for me at this time (but if a lollipop update rolls out and a ROM developer updates to that then I'll surely try it).
Sent from my SM-P900 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really helpfull man thanks a lot for all the information u shared, am ok with but guess will need to do more research for greenify cuz I didnt use it at all, secondly what office u used after uniinstalling hancom?

I'm currently using Microsoft's Word/Excel Preview apps and have an Office 365 account to enable editing. I've just started (1 month trial) so I haven't really gotten a lot of use out of the software yet.
I can't speak for anyone else but myself but my reason for dropping Hancom was twofold; 1) it did not support the review/commenting features that I needed in Word files and 2) it often required updates at inopportune times. My needs are quite specific, my tablet is a reference and note taking device for meetings and is never used for production type work. As such, I need the ability to take email attachments, open them for review and comment and then send the comments back out as email attachments. The limitations of Hancom when it comes to track changes were a deal breaker for me since I could not see the history of development of reports/documents.
Microsoft's mobile version of Word implements the best support of track changes/comments that I've found to date, so I'm forced to pay the premium of a 365 subscription on this device to get what I need.

muzzy996 said:
I'm currently using Microsoft's Word/Excel Preview apps and have an Office 365 account to enable editing. I've just started (1 month trial) so I haven't really gotten a lot of use out of the software yet.
I can't speak for anyone else but myself but my reason for dropping Hancom was twofold; 1) it did not support the review/commenting features that I needed in Word files and 2) it often required updates at inopportune times. My needs are quite specific, my tablet is a reference and note taking device for meetings and is never used for production type work. As such, I need the ability to take email attachments, open them for review and comment and then send the comments back out as email attachments. The limitations of Hancom when it comes to track changes were a deal breaker for me since I could not see the history of development of reports/documents.
Microsoft's mobile version of Word implements the best support of track changes/comments that I've found to date, so I'm forced to pay the premium of a 365 subscription on this device to get what I need.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for reply and sorry for late , hoping the android 5 be great

Install cm12 lollipop ROM. Drastic improvement in browser performance and gaming. For example, Asphalt 8 is extremely slow on stock, even overclocked. On cm12 it runs perfectly with max graphics settings. Unfortunately you lose all the cool touchwiz features like multi window. For me, the performance improvement is enough that it's worth the lost features. I'm anxiously waiting for the official lollipop update.