Just looking for some information & help here guys. I might seem like a really basic & simple question but I'm a newbie to Android. Got my Galaxy Nexus (which is my 1st Android) after having moved over from the iPhone.
Anyway, I have noticed that some apps I have installed auto start as soon as I stop them. My mate advised me to install the Android Booster app which closes apps, but a few minutes later some of them just auto restart like Facebook & Sky News. They also auto restart if I stop them through apps on the settings menu.
Is there a way of stopping these apps from running when I'm not using them to save on battery and data usage?
Thanks
Apps that restart automatically have a background service running and will keep restarting. They might need that service for background updates or other tasks.
Uninstall the booster app and any other task manager you might have installed and let Android manage the resources. Apps running in the background normally have no measurable impact on battery life. You should never have to worry about that. Only really crappy apps (or wrong user settings like update every 2min) make problems and you should uninstall them anyway and not try to "fix" what they do wrong.
If you are worried about them eating your data, use the new data usage feature in the settings and restrict background data for the apps individually.
Thanks for the reply. Yeah it was more the data usage than battery I am worried about. I hav now gone into setting and restricted background data. How do I restrict individual apps?
You can't do Facebook yet as its not working with ics yet and can't access the menu. Most other apps have a setting option about auto updating.
So here's the issue. Google maps is great and useful, but even when you're not using it, it's running in the background and hogging up ram. Now, before you give me the old "android uses ram in a different way" speech, it's pretty obvious that maps doesn't take long to reopen even if it's been cleared from the ram. So it'd be better to have that ram freed up for multitasking purposes.
Also, constantly running in the background means it's draining some battery too.
The solution to this would be to disable maps when not using it and then reenable it when required. However, this takes time.
So, I was wondering if anyone could make a shortcut/app which let's us disable and enable the maps app with just the press of a button.
Freeze it using titanium back up
Sent from my GT-I9300 with a BIG
I have a list of apps I freeze n unfreeze regularly - like easy ums or paragon ntfs - I have the unfreez all widget to aim in quick access - but if you spent the time to make a filter in titianium your could have it unfreeze a particular app
Just go application manager > all > disable it, I'd saw uninstalled update then uninstall it and disable
Else, use titanium backup freeze it, don't be lazy keep on asking developer to do such thing
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda premium
Titanium has a widget that lets you disable and enable a specific app. No need for a different app.
Tasker? It does wonders.
For me, it makes a new application called (New Maps) that unfreezes google maps, waits until it is unfrozen, launches it.
If maps has been inactive for the past XX minutes, it will automatically freeze it. (also set to be frozen on boot)
After this thread I found the TiBu action widget that will cycle through Freeze/Unfreeze&Open.
Pretty handy! Use it now for Facebook and Maps.
seanpr123 said:
After this thread I found the TiBu action widget that will cycle through Freeze/Unfreeze&Open.
Pretty handy! Use it now for Facebook and Maps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, been doing this since I had the GS2
trein91 said:
Tasker? It does wonders.
For me, it makes a new application called (New Maps) that unfreezes google maps, waits until it is unfrozen, launches it.
If maps has been inactive for the past XX minutes, it will automatically freeze it. (also set to be frozen on boot)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Am a fanatic tasker user myself, but never spend time on the 'new' app factory.
Would you care to share these profiles/scenes, waste of time to reinvent the wheel twice
http://db.tt/fkUdDAdY
2 profiles two tasks
Export new maps as an app and use it whenever you want to launch maps from a frozen state.
Set your own athome variable or modify it if you don't need two different timeout settings
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2
Ok, after analyzing BBS past few nights I've determined even when you freeze something in TiBu, it doesn't actually remove the alarm wakeups from Alarm Manager. You need to do a restart to clear after freeze to truly remove its footprint.
Restart is rather annoying, anybody have any other thoughts on how to better accomplish the freeze process?
I went trough an odyssey since I bough my Archos G90 Turbo some years ago.
If you have this device you may be familiar with this: constant application freezes and crashes, big keyboard lag, system reboots, can not wake up from sleep, fast battery drain, and a large etcetera of nuisances that make you sad and willing to crush this piece of ****.
After trying almost all the firmwares on the forum thread dedicated to this device I have come to a solution and I wanted to left it here so maybe it helps someone.
The problem with this device is the lack of ram, 512mb is very little and system comes full of bloatware and a lot of applications leave daemons running even when they are not running.
I have installed the stock rooted version of firmware 4.0.7 as some pointed out that is the one that runs better on 512mb devices, and then I have installed root uninstaller and started to remove all apps and services that I don't need.
For instance I have uninstalled:
clock, contacts, contact storage, DRM protected content storage, exchange services, gallery, Gmail, Google+, Google contacts sync, Google play store, Google search, Google tts engine , media center, media storage, media scrapper, talk, talk back, voice search, Japanese keyboard.
There are some system applications that can be replaced for others that use less memory and don't leave daemons like:
play store -> aptoide
gallery -> quickpic (solves problem of being unable to enter deep sleep)
media player -> mx player
browser -> opera mini
Gmail app -> email app
I have also avoided synchronizing anything, or installing applications I use sporadically.
I'm using the tablet since a couple of weeks after doing this and it finally works fine.
Like the title says, I've noticed since updating to 7.1.2 at least 2-3 times a day I am thrown a notification for "updating Instant Apps" but it never tells me if it was updated or installed. I tried going to Settings -> Google -> Instant Apps and it is disabled yet these apps are auto-downloading and installing in the background. I have auto-updates off on the play store but this still occurs.
Is there anything I can do to disable or at least cripple the instant apps? I'm reading the purpose of instant apps is so you can try an application without installing it, I do not want to test drive apps like Buzzfeed so however I can disable it would be great
fatapia said:
Like the title says, I've noticed since updating to 7.1.2 at least 2-3 times a day I am thrown a notification for "updating Instant Apps" but it never tells me if it was updated or installed. I tried going to Settings -> Google -> Instant Apps and it is disabled yet these apps are auto-downloading and installing in the background. I have auto-updates off on the play store but this still occurs.
Is there anything I can do to disable or at least cripple the instant apps? I'm reading the purpose of instant apps is so you can try an application without installing it, I do not want to test drive apps like Buzzfeed so however I can disable it would be great
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So, using Titanium Backup I couldn't find the package com.google.android.instantapps.supervisor but using a root explorer I found the application in /data/app/com.google.android.instantapps.supervisor-2
I also found saved data in /data/data/com.google.android.apps.instantapps.supervisor
I have no idea if this will prevent the service from auto-updating as it has been without permission but I know where it is now...
Update: Deleting both folders causing settings to crash when you go to Settings -> Google -> Instant apps, so it might be deleted off my phone entirely. I will update if I see the application re-install itself
Instant apps are temporary apps. So you can't uninstall them or disable it. It's a feature built into Android that is not going away. Your only option is to install a rom without Gapps. Otherwise deal with it.
Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
superchilpil said:
Instant apps are temporary apps. So you can't uninstall them or disable it. It's a feature built into Android that is not going away. Your only option is to install a rom without Gapps. Otherwise deal with it.
Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
deleting those two files seemed to have broken that feature.
My issue was that I disabled that service through settings as suggested by one of the google support pages but it would still download and install "Instant Apps" the service throughout the day, not the actual temporary apps themselves. So it's been dealt with lol
oh man, when i saw this i thought i had a virus on my phone.
especially when i couldn't find anything named "instant apps" in the app drawer
I am hoping that this will work for me as well. The first time I saw the instant apps pop up I just connected to a free wifi in Mexico and freaked out. This seriously bothers me. I uninstalled it and it came back update after update. I also will not be using any instant apps, so this is something I want to break.
speedee12 said:
I am hoping that this will work for me as well. The first time I saw the instant apps pop up I just connected to a free wifi in Mexico and freaked out. This seriously bothers me. I uninstalled it and it came back update after update. I also will not be using any instant apps, so this is something I want to break.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
some how it was pushed back on to my phone. this is not a permanent solution...
so I'm trying to disable this through other means now and I found something interesting? I need someone with more experience to chime in as far as what these* lines* do*.. and where I found it...
so in /data/data/com.google.android.apps.instantapps.supervisor/shared_prefs/phenotypeConfigurations.xml there are these three lines:
<boolean name="Supervisor__enable_instant_apps" value="true" />
<boolean name="Supervisor__disable_url_resolution" value="false" />
<boolean name="TestFeature__enable_test" value="true" />
I flipped the value of these three entries to see if this will disable it. I find it odd that for the first line it was set for "true" when the settings say it's off. I will update again if I see this come back. My coworker had suggested that this may be built in to the Google app itself? Let's see...
so I had to unroot my phone because I forgot to log into snapchat, then re-root after, and Instant Apps was back yet again. The changes I made to the XML file persisted but the app was back.
I think I found a way to remove it entirely. I used Root Explorer, idk what other applications would work for this. So I navigated back to /data/app/com.google.android.instantapps.supervisor-1 and I clicked the base.apk and I had an option to uninstall, I did this then rebooted my phone to see if reboots are why it fixes itself except the entry for Instant Apps has been removed from settings. This appears to permanently remove this feature.
every time I think I fix this it keeps coming back lol, I finally called Google Support and this is the first they are hearing of it. The application re-installed itself at 430-some Mountain Time on it's own, other times it re-installs upon reboot. I'm going to find a way to cripple it if google cant
I recommend calling support to let them know that Instant Apps is enabled even though the switch says it is disabled.
fatapia said:
every time I think I fix this it keeps coming back lol, I finally called Google Support and this is the first they are hearing of it. The application re-installed itself at 430-some Mountain Time on it's own, other times it re-installs upon reboot. I'm going to find a way to cripple it if google cant
I recommend calling support to let them know that Instant Apps is enabled even though the switch says it is disabled.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the same annoyances, "Installig Instant apps" notification appears randomly during the last month, and reading in the logcat they are updates/patches to the new feature, managed by finsky app (Play Store). The most scaring thing is that one time it appeared also during mobile data connection, which is not acceptable (and 800kb background data from Play Store). Google is being too aggressive with it. Why not simply integrate it and update it along with Play Services like the other 1000 google APIs ? !on WIFI!
Thank you for your tests, unfortunately the update process seems to be triggered by Google Play services itself or by Google play store.
I searched for related alarms/wakelocks in Amplify and could only found one wakelock coming from com.google.android.apps.instantapps.supervisor itself: .ExperimentUpdateService. I decided to keep it as this probably isn't the trigger.
ninestarkoko said:
I have the same annoyances, "Installig Instant apps" notification appears randomly during the last month, and reading in the logcat they are updates/patches to the new feature, managed by finsky app (Play Store). The most scaring thing is that one time it appeared also during mobile data connection, which is not acceptable (and 800kb background data from Play Store). Google is being too aggressive with it. Why not simply integrate it and update it along with Play Services like the other 1000 google APIs ? !on WIFI!
Thank you for your tests, unfortunately the update process seems to be triggered by Google Play services itself or by Google play store.
I searched for related alarms/wakelocks in Amplify and could only found one wakelock coming from com.google.android.apps.instantapps.supervisor itself: .ExperimentUpdateService. I decided to keep it as this probably isn't the trigger.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah that's now my only worrisome complaint is that it ignores the play store settings and will download over any network connection. You can try submitting feedback through settings and suggest they fix this part so that it updates as you said. Thanks for the additional info, I'll try disabling that and report back if it makes any difference. I doubt that's the source of the problem though so I uninstall the apk so something else must be initiating it.
Thank you guys for this thread! I have the regular Pixel and have been seeing this happen... "Instant Apps" was disabled but somehow still updating either itself or something else, and I wondered if there was an additional switch somewhere to disable it. Looks like the answer is no. ?
Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk
So I noticed every time the play store found an update, magically Instant Apps was back. I began to notice that this may be a service built into Play Store and not the Google app itself. So I had an idea, I went into Settings for Android and turned off background data for Play services. Obviously this will affect quite a bit, but honestly I am at that point from fighting this feature that I'd gladly give that up. So far after 2 days I have not seen the application re-install itself. It has been more permanent that the other solutions I've had so far.
There's an article from XDA in Analysis and Opinion talking about Instant Apps and Play Store 7.8.15, apparently this issue is affecting people all the way down to the Samsung S5... although people are hesistant to believe this issue exists for whatever reason.
You can cripple it by restricting its access to internet via firewall. Unfortunately this method also drives up battery consumption as the firewall does jujitsu with "Google Play services for Instant Apps" - I am actively fantasizing about taking my baby sledge to this thing and going back to a "dumb"-phone that doesn't have all this drama constantly! I'm using an S5 right now. This is definitely a google thing. They have a similar self-install-without-asking "feature" on windows via their chrome browser. Just look up "SwReporter" in that program's directory. It self-populates with an executable as you use chrome normally and there is no option in the program for it to not do that. You can safely make a shortcut to that directory and empty it out regularly to restrict its functionality which is presumably for keeping an eye on you. I am also trying an alternate method of changing security to prevent write access to that directory. I have no idea how to do that on an unrooted android. Any ideas? And does anybody know how to cripple "instant apps" malware/spyware backdoor "feature" on an unrooted device without eating battery like crazy?
Today I noticed that Instant Apps was installing without my permission. When I clicked on that notification, it brought me to the Google Play Store. (In Google Play Store, I have auto updates disabled.) I have an unrooted Galaxy Note 4 and I can't even find the settings for Instant Apps under the Google settings. Why aren't the settings there? I found the app in the Apps settings called "Google Play services for Instant Apps" (thank you G1A). I cleared it's the cache and data and then uninstalled it. So I'm assuming it will not come back but you never know.
EDIT: Well the "Google Play services for Instant Apps" reinstalled itself AGAIN WITHOUT MY PERMISSION. Getting sick of tired of Google's POMPOUS business ethics.
If it reinstalled itself.... then his would require root privileges in order to disable.
yeah this issue is annoying, it seems to initiate the download upon every reboot and each time it checks the play store for updates for any of your apps.
I found a way to disable it but it required freezing the app through Titanium Backup. I have NO CLUE why I couldn't see Instant Apps before in this list but it is listed as "Google Play Services for Instant Apps." It does not re-install or try to even download, does not show in Settings under Google, but if you look at the app itself in settings you will see it does still run. I am not sure to what extent but yeeeaahhh at least it doesnt seem like it can run anything
No problem As an update, changing security permissions (specifically for writing) for chrome's target folder Definitely (in windows 10) serves as an effective measure to blockade its ability to regenerate itself. This same method also works for microsoft edge located in the C-Windows-SystemApps folder. I presume that the programming methods would be analogous with android on google's end. Anybody know how to restrict write access to a folder on android? So long as it checks for a folder existing and it does exist (multi-decade programming approach) then it attempts to write to that folder. However, because it's already running in stealth mode (aka background) then it will never show an error message when it fails to execute, and it won't report back either, as that functionality depends on the contents of the targeted folder it is denied access to. It should be effectively crippled without excessive CPU consumption if you can just restrict its ability to write to the default folder that it installs itself in. Any ideas how to execute this kind of blockade?
UPDATE: As a way to cripple not Instant Apps specifically, but an entire host of functionality on the android platform, something called "Power Saving Mode" seems to knock out a key background runtime required for this pest to run. Unfortunately it doesn't let you pick and choose what it shuts off, so other useful apps may lose their functionality too. Post if anybody finds a more app-specific method!
Does this crap have its own separate package? If so, you could uninstall it and make a dummy APK having the same package name. This could prevent "updates" due to signing key conflicts, but might also break things...
After deleting several applications, the "NFC Services" service always stays in the background (even without NFC being active)
I have tried to clear data, cache, debloat the application and restore it and nothing seems to work.
Even with activity manager, it forces the background app to close by restricting it and it stays open.
Start the phone in error proof mode and it kept starting, maybe the process got stuck.
I also deleted the data from google play and google services in case it was something related to gpay but it didn't work
The NFC works correctly, but that's it, it stays in the background and it doesn't happen to others.
I have asked friends who did not debloat and in forums with the same phone and it does not happen to them.
Maybe remove some application that controls that? either maybe some application from the debloat list is making a call to the NFC API and that causes it to not close?
you can look at settings, applications, manage applications and in Search you put NFC (maybe it won't come out and you have to enable see hidden applications)
https://i.ibb.co/zHFrt10/e3ac7546-d76e-4b38-912f-1fc5e54dcdc7.jpg