Do you need a task manager installed?

[Adrynalyne]

I see things a little differently. I posted this over at Droidforums, but will repost it here. Its my opinion, take it or leave it, but being that I use the phone and do see a difference, its not anyone's place to tell me if I am right or wrong.

Without forth ado,

In a perfect world, then applications in the background would not cause issue.



This, is not a perfect world however, and we aren't running regular Linux. Our apps are running in a virtual machine.



An interesting thing I found on wikipedia under Android limitations....



Garbage collection will slow down programs that make too many memory allocations so that Dalvik can keep a pool of free memory. This may noticeably affect responsiveness.[93]



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)



Anyway,



Its been my experience that using a task killer unwisely, hurts performance, breaks features, etc. Knowing what to put on your ignore list for a task killer makes the TK an efficient and quick way to get performance back when a program or program(s) are bogging the phone down. I have mine setup so it ignores my widgets that update, my messaging, email, and calendar apps, and I do NOT have it run in the background or on startup.



When my phone starts to bog down, and lets face it, ALL phones do at some point, I go in, and hit the end all button. It kills off whats not ignored, INCLUDING itself, and I get that fresh dou...erm, boot feeling again

 

[Chris Kerrigan]

I see things a little differently. I posted this over at Droidforums, but will repost it here. Its my opinion, take it or leave it, but being that I use the phone and do see a difference, its not anyone's place to tell me if I am right or wrong.

Without forth ado,

In a perfect world, then applications in the background would not cause issue.



This, is not a perfect world however, and we aren't running regular Linux. Our apps are running in a virtual machine.



An interesting thing I found on wikipedia under Android limitations....



Garbage collection will slow down programs that make too many memory allocations so that Dalvik can keep a pool of free memory. This may noticeably affect responsiveness.[93]



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)



Anyway,



Its been my experience that using a task killer unwisely, hurts performance, breaks features, etc. Knowing what to put on your ignore list for a task killer makes the TK an efficient and quick way to get performance back when a program or program(s) are bogging the phone down. I have mine setup so it ignores my widgets that update, my messaging, email, and calendar apps, and I do NOT have it run in the background or on startup.



When my phone starts to bog down, and lets face it, ALL phones do at some point, I go in, and hit the end all button. It kills off whats not ignored, INCLUDING itself, and I get that fresh dou...erm, boot feeling again

Could not have set it better myself. I completely agree that the key is knowing HOW exactly to use a task manager, and what not to kill and what is OK to kill off.

From personal experience, I have never had a single issue with the OS beginning to slow down or become less responsive, regardless of how much memory I am using. But, I do have Advanced Task Manager installed anyway, because you never know when you might actually need it.

 

[prometheus]

There is a native system tool to view running apps and kill whatever you want. If one's desire is to optimize battery and memory performance, that can be accomplished by having less apps installed and running in the background. So, I do see the point of not installing or continuously running a task killer. However, I don't see the benefit of using the task killer to force kill running apps when there is a system tool for just that. Is it just because it can be done with one quick click?

 

[Adrynalyne]

Sure. You don't really think I want to go into 3-4 different menus just to perform the same thing?

 

[ellisz]

from a newb standpoint, what are the apps you want to kill and what do you want to leave? Should you leave all of you emails active? Coming from a BB as quite a few are, we are more memory conscience but really I want to save battery. I run through my battery like crazy. While looking at processes, there are some I really don't know how they get started?

Right now I have in ATK:
Gmail
Quick Profiles
Browser
voice search
email
car home - dont use
corporate calendar - dont use
alarm clock
Touchdown
Weatherbug
Messaging
Handcent
settings
ATK

Thanks

 

[Cory Streater]

from a newb standpoint, what are the apps you want to kill and what do you want to leave?

Don't worry about it. Use it for a week and you'll realize you don't need a task manager for this phone. Android automagically does it all for you.

 

[prometheus]

Don't worry about it. Use it for a week and you'll realize you don't need a task manager for this phone. Android automagically does it all for you.

+1 -- Android is your friend and servant. It WANTS to please its master. let it do it's job.

 

[Dapke36]

After reading all this, I am uninstalling ATK right now.

I figure if I need it, I can always download it off the market again.

Lets see how it goes....

 

[jlgraham]

My preference is to have a task killer but i do not OCD and use it all the time, rarely ever anymore. What I like it for is for bugs in certain software, such as the stock browser and beautiful widgets for example, sometimes will need GPS for something and if im inside, will try to find a signal for so long, hurting battery. When these things happen from time to time, i use the task manager to kill them.

I've noticed that on the stock web browser, if I'm on the Google Android homepage (google search) the GPS icon will flash continuously for some time, even while outdoors, and it does kill the battery. This happens on startup when i initially use the browser, and when I navigate back to the home page. For me, I just changed my homepage and it doesn't do this anymore. opening up to google search is kind of unncessary on my droid anyways given that it has a search button.

 

[Dapke36]

Day 2 without a taskkiller...not noticing any lag, and better still, I have yet to have a force close for my desktop!

 

[MosX]

Day 2 without a taskkiller...not noticing any lag, and better still, I have yet to have a force close for my desktop!

Why is this expected?

Why do you guys think the task killer is needed for normal operation of the phone? Do you think this phone was really shipped with no ability to handle tasks?


As pointed out, Android was designed to leave applications in memory for as long as possible (memory is not useful if nothing is in it). If the system needs more, it will kill off a running task itself.

 

[prometheus]

Why is this expected?

Why do you guys think the task killer is needed for normal operation of the phone? Do you think this phone was really shipped with no ability to handle tasks?


As pointed out, Android was designed to leave applications in memory for as long as possible (memory is not useful if nothing is in it). If the system needs more, it will kill off a running task itself.

I think you meant "UNexpected"...

Good point, why is this app considered "essential" by so many people? This app is NEEDED for blackberrys, yet (to my knowledge) none like it exist. We get (what many of us consider) a superior product and then don't trust that it can handle memory and multiple apps without third party help (????) That just doesn't make sense.

I don't know why task killers have the reputation of being mandatory. I think it's a knee-jerk reaction to the poor battery performance and a desire to lengthen battery life with the mistaken idea that running apps are killing the battery. However, the primary battey drain is screen being too bright - that has ZERO to do with any app and is just a setting.

I've read here and elsewhere that task killers help battery... wrong! Check settings / about phone / battery use.. notice that the main drain is display and then notice (if using a task killer) that a task killer is responsible for about 3-4% of your daily drain. It is counterproductive to use a task killer to help battery. TASK KILLERS DON'T HELP BATTERY PERFORMANCE - IN FACT THEY DRAIN YOUR BATTERY FASTER WHEN INSTALLED!

 

[WAM]

my phone seems to actually perform faster with out it

 

[Adrynalyne]

Let me ask you fine folks a question.

What do you do about programs that are sucking cpu cycles instead of ram? Memory management is but one part of the equation.

Thats going to slow the phone down and kill the battery. Not every program forced into the background behaves as you want it to.

It seems to me a task killer is the best option for these situations, and yes it does happen once in a while.

 

[nbobimchak]

Home++

I generally use the embedded task killer in Home++, and it does a great job. I can absolutely see a difference in responsiveness when I use it to kill off fat programs (like the Browser or Google Search [Enhanced]). Home++ doesn't seem to wear on my battery life noticeably either, so I can only see it as a good thing. It also seems to find programs and processes that ATK misses. Granted, it's not really an option for anyone not using Home++ (and I miss it, now that I've been using SlideScreen), but using it seems to be better than doing nothing, at least in my experience.

 

[prometheus]

Let me ask you fine folks a question.

What do you do about programs that are sucking cpu cycles instead of ram? Memory management is but one part of the equation.

Thats going to slow the phone down and kill the battery. Not every program forced into the background behaves as you want it to.

It seems to me a task killer is the best option for these situations, and yes it does happen once in a while.

I'm not as techy as you (since I never thought to ask the question you asked, good one, by the way). I can't speak very educatedly regarding the difference between a running app using CPU cycles rather than RAM - I know that from my experience I haven't seen a decrease in available RAM without a task killer running. That is to say - I didn't experience a task killer free up RAM.

Regarding "CPU cycles will slow the phone down and kill the battery" - I agree, Excessive drag on the system resources will result in decreased performance and battery drain. And, if a task killer did end programs that were taxing the system too much they would be useful and helpful. But, that's what we're all saying - there is no program that's dragging down system resources. There is no sluggishness or performance issues. Nothing is excessive nothing is too much. The OS was designed very well. It opens and closes programs all of the time in the background and does not allow running programs to overtax the system resources.

Regarding battery drain: Yes. We would experience longer battery life if less programs were running and there were less CPU cycles. But, let's not argue over a lousy 3 and 4% of battery use throughout the day. Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. I don't want to try and eke out an extra 3% of my battery by running a task killer that uses an extra 3% of my battery to do that and then have to tolerate force closes and task killer interference with something that should have been in the ignore list.

You said that not every program forced into the background behaves as I want it to. Yes, we all agree on that. But, wouldn't it just be be easier to do a power off / on cycle? it takes what? 1 minute? Seriously, why use a task killer at all when it does nothing that the system doesn't do automatically? Or, in some rare event of system slowness do a power cycle and fix it.

 

[Adrynalyne]

The time it takes to power cycle, I could have hit the kill button on the widget for my TK about 15 times. Also, I guarantee power cycles drain your battery even quicker than the screen does on phones. (Easy enough experiment if you have a laptop. Repeatedly reboot on battery and watch it drain quicker than if you used it).

I will agree that its not always the case that a program will suck up CPU cycles in the background, but I can say its happened. With the built in Android apps? No. But with us having access to so many apps via the Market, you are bound to eventually run into one. I have, for instance, run into this with Dolphin.

I know I cannot be alone in such things, because I have read on more than one occasion the following scenario:

Someone uses their phone and then puts it away with a nice charge on the battery still, only to open it to use it slme xx amount of time later and find that the battery has nearly died. Or someone has gone to bed with a full charge, and woken up with a nearly dead battery. It isn't ram hungry apps in the background that have done this, but an app that has been chewing on the CPU for some time while the phone was idle.

Now obvioously, you could reboot your phone when you see such things, or you could go throuigh umpteen menus and close the apps yourself via manage applications. Running services will not kill all apps. It will not kill a good portion of them, in fact. The problem with this scenario is that I know that I am not the only person here that relies heavily on battery life. I cannot just stop where I am at during the day to charge my phone because a runaway app killed the battery. I cannot afford to have a dead phone because I left something running.

So, I hit a kill button in my TK when I know I won't be using my phone for a while. This insures that I will not only not have to deal with apps eating the CPU and battery, but will have a nice, snappy phone the next time I go to use it.

When I first used a TK, I will admit I was naive and killed the wrong things, which caused me problems later. However with the above thoughts in mind and an intelligent ignore list, I've not had issues in quite a while, and have been able to last well throughout the day with good battery life and performance, even with wifi enabled!


Android has incredible memory management. I have never seen my phone drop below 30mb of free ram, no matter what all is running at the time.

Android is not so hot when it comes to programs eating CPU cycles. Its not going to autokill a program thats eating 50%+ of your CPU, to free up CPU cycles. If it did, we wouldn't be able to run intensive programs ever

So whats on my ignore list, you may ask?

Messaging
Email
Calendar
Corporate Calendar
Beautiful Widgets
Weather Widget
Alarm

..and some others that I cannot remember off the top of my head. My phone is not be at the moment.

I add whatever I know does not misbehave, needs to be running (esp. for widget functions!), or auto restarts itself when you kill it. I do not kill services.

Anyway, just some small thoughts, and my opinion only. If you don't like it, I am certainly not trying to force it down anyone's throat, just speaking from my own personal experience.

 

[graymulligan]

I've been rocking along without ATK for a while now, with no negative side effects. I do have a question though...

How do I talk the stock browser into opening with my home page, and not my last page visited? That't the one process I can't seem to find a way to fully close, so that when I reopen it, it's back at the home page.

 

[prometheus]

@ Adrynalyne... Are you saying that you DON'T keep the task killer running in the background? Do you only use it very sparingly to kill a bunch of processes when the phone will be idle for a while? If so, how do you get the task killer to NOT run continuously? My memory is sketchy... but, I thought that ATK automatically put itself on the ignore list - therefore, always running. Or, was it possible to have ATK kill itself. Also, (sorry got the endless questions, I really want to understand this) if ATK is killed how do you get it to turn back on?

 

[Adrynalyne]

Well I have used ATK, (the one listed on the Verizon side, there are a couple coined ATK), and there are options for it to not run on startup, so I uncheck that.

Then I setup my ignore list. ATK does not put itself on auto-ignore. So, I simply hit the icon in the drawer, or where ever you have it, and it kills the stuff not on my ignore list, in including itself.

So its definitely only running when I call it up. It has worked well for me so far. I don't have any desire to try one thats running at all times and/or auto-killing. That is a bucket of fail, in my opinion and going to do nothing but cause pain and tears.

Edit: Appears its been dropped from the Verizon side of the market. Its called Advanced Task Killer Free.

My ignore list is currently:

Messaging
Voice Dialer
Alarm Clock
Corporate calendar
Voice Search
Pure calendar widget
Google voice
Gmail

...and a few others I will add later. I was trying Task Panel for a bit and had it uninstalled. Task Panel does largely the same, but is far more bloated than my needs.