Task Killers... The Answer from Google & Developers.

[JohnnyDepth]

I have advance task manager killing every 30 minutes and never once has it killed gps and i do use it alot. {anything that is set to system persistant will not get killed}ie....gps, phone, messaging, genie, and so on

it all refers to your device is as smart as you if you let it kill everything then yes it is pointless. Advance task manager and killer have exclusion settings. Mine is set to exclude ie... adw.launcher, setcpu, beautiful widgets. My highly used apps i have more exclusions but that was just an example.

i know i have posted this somewhere else not sure where but in reference to this subject.

i come from a gaming world and what i have learned is you dont want your memory used up for ie... google gadgets, toolbars and so on. you want free memory at your disposal or the game gets laggy and choppy.

the droid 1 only has 256 mb that isn't alot of memory then when you look at your free resources and it tells you that you only have 50mb free or less that it isnt alot of free resources. What exactly is wrong with more free memory why does the os have to utilize that much. i dont know about anyone elses phone but my phone below 50 mb gets laggy and choppy slow and unresponsive.

i dont mind the device using some memory for cache IF it is storing memory for the apps i use not what the device is programmed to think i use

ie..
-i use beautiful widgets for weather no need for me to see genie eating memory.
-Phone only needs to comunicate with google once a day to back up my contacts and other info

there is much more i just cant think of anymore at this time

Jason, Jason, Jason!! This is not a Windows Computer nor is it a Blackberry or Palm. Programs that are "running" in the back ground are not running. They are simply loaded in memory and sitting dormant. They are not drawing current from the battery and they are not using cpu cycles. If the android os needs additional ram to run something you've requested, it will remove from ram whatever it needs to in order to run your requested task. If you have an app that needs killing constantly, get rid of it and find an alternate app.

Below is a write up from Google Devs: "Android was designed from the ground up as an operating system (OS) for mobile devices. Its built-in application and memory-management systems were engineered with battery life as one of the most critical concerns.
The Android OS does not work like a desktop operating system. On a desktop OS, like Windows, Mac OS X, or Ubuntu Linux, the user is responsible for closing programs in order to keep a reasonable amount of memory available. On Android, this is not the case. The OS itself automatically removes programs from memory as memory is needed. The OS may also preload applications into memory which it thinks might soon be needed.
Having lots of available empty memory is not a good thing. It takes the same amount of power to hold "nothing" in memory as it does to hold actual data. So, like every other operating system in use today, Android does its best to keep as much important/likely-to-be-used information in memory as possible.
As such, using a task manager/killer to constantly clear memory by killing apps is strongly NOT RECOMMENDED. Generally speaking, you should only "End" applications if you see one which is not working correctly."

I recommend you don't waste your time.
Json purports to know better than any of us
because his unbiased quadrant scores and linkpack figures are
through the roof, so he must know more than us mere mortals.

I flashed from BB v0.4 to LFY with slayher's 1.25Ghz kernel and
managed to score over 20 on quandrant, but honestly wgas?
These figures don't mean squat.

 

[JohnnyDepth]

BTW, I'd like to state that I have used a task killer since day 1. I've gone for weeks also without here and there to test it out.

I use a task killer maybe once or twice a day. Only when my device starts feeling sluggish. As you may all know the Droid starts slowing down with under 35 MB free memory. If you peg it at about 60mb, although devs say you're "wasting away 60mb," the device is a lot faster. This is a fact. Why? As you scroll page to page, widgets gobble up memory. You need a bit of "free" memory" to account for this. Also you need some free memory to combat spikes like when gmail pushes, your calendar syncs, your exchange mail buzzes, your Twitter feed cycles or the widget scrolls through, etc etc.

But what's better than manually killing those tasks to get a brief moment of smooth scrolling is to use autokiller. Peg your minfree around 40-50mb at least. I try 60mb. I'd say my battery life has been about the same across the board. With autokiller, it uses Android's automated task elimination by trying to maintain 60mb.

I agree with everything you've just posted
except I don't use a task killer (since autokiller can also do this)
I do kill the google news and weather app.widget/service. Nothing else.


I don't get why people would post here claiming to make a correlation
between a window's memory management system with Androids?

It's as simple as this:

Does your phone EVER experience slow performance?
Random FC's?
Does it freeze up? Stop responding?

When you can rule out a bad install of an app or even a ROM...
Bad memory blocks/corrupted system files...

Ask yourself if you use a task killer?


I don't, and I've never had an issue.

Here is what people do NOT understand about autokiller:

It doesn't whimsically "kill" anything in any different way
than the Android OS does itself to begin with...Still with me?

We all know Android OS's built in task management system is flawed
which is the main catalyst of performance degradation.

Autokiller simply fine tunes the already predetermined variables
and figures for each of the type of protocol that runs, will be run, or
already has run: (these items are)

-Background App
-Visible App
-2ndary Server
-Hidden App
-Content Provider
-Empty App

The (numerical) figures can be changed so that the available memory is increased. It doesn't do it 24/7 -only when the system NEEDS the memory
to run apps, widgets, services, processes, etc. (in other words
the Android OS even without the auto killer does the SAME thing,
except for the fact and obviousness auotkiller enables the end user
to specify what types of apps get killed, don't get killed based on
user preferences...

If anyone cannot understand this, and still calls auto killer a
task killer (in every sense of each word) and doesn't understand that
Android OS also "kills" apps/services/processes as well then
we have a new level of misunderstanding here.

 

[jasonppp]

If anyone cannot understand this, and still calls auto killer a
task killer (in every sense of each word) and doesn't understand that
Android OS also "kills" apps/services/processes as well then
we have a new level of misunderstanding here.

it is still an application outside of android os killing tasks
there is a bigger color scale out there other then grey

you say tomato i say tomato

:"Still a task killer":

I flashed from BB v0.4 to LFY with slayher's 1.25Ghz kernel and
managed to score over 20 on quandrant

really i had the same configuration with no added apps or widgets running and best i got was 1536

I dont live in the show me state but that is a great expression best out of 5

i test alot :

 

[BayouFlyFisher]

No Task Killer since last November:

I've never even checked how much free ram I have!!! How is it possible??? :icon_ banana:

 

[jasonppp]

i run system info widget so it right on front screen and btw nice score
but you could look under settings/applications/running services and look at the bottom

 

[JohnnyDepth]

No Task Killer since last November:

I've never even checked how much free ram I have!!! How is it possible??? :icon_ banana:

I'll bite. How much free Ram do you have?

 

[BayouFlyFisher]

No Task Killer since last November:

I've never even checked how much free ram I have!!! How is it possible??? :icon_ banana:

I'll bite. How much free Ram do you have?

How do I even check available ram? I have honestly never done it.

Also, what the heck is that dark shadow across the top of my screen capture?

 

[fabricred]

ive used advanced task killer for a while now so i never new how my phone acted without having a task killer in place. ive been running without one for just one day and can tell a big difference in performance. it no runs as smooth as the day i got it.

 

[Dragon3463]

its not that I don't understand that the task killers doesn't really help the phones systems. But why do they need to load all the apps at once. that doesn't make no sense to me in any form....

 

[turf]

I got through most of this thread and bored of reading it so if this is repeat oh well.
The purest on here say the killers are not needed... good for you... if everyone was just a developer where profits and human error weren't factors then they wouldn't be needed.

Unfortunately people do download apps that work improperly and/or sell all the info they collect for more directed marketing dollars and who do you think I'd benefit to make sure that app that is suppose to be running in the background and doing nothing were to keep running "in error" and collecting more info?

Last thought from an ignoramus... I could care less if my phone takes 3/10ths of a second longer to open an app... just close the stupid thing. The phone is fast enough that pre-loading is more for peace of mind then true performance. IMO

 

[everstar80]

I just got a 32gb memory card for my droid2 and it still seems like there are programs or memory that are using my memory but after watching the video, I am still uncertain on what type of task killer to use or how to check on what programs are doing this. Anymore tips?

 

[zerosouls]

Try an app called system panel... it shows you the apps in the foreground and background and you can end them and also pick up information about them without the AUTO mode that is so infamous about task killing

 

[RnD_Solo]

that is an excellent series of videos. i start my indepth programming classes next semester, im hoping c and c++ are in there so i can REALLY dig into this OS. i know a lot is java, but all the underlying stuff is c. thats awesome.

i would LOVE to make and app (edit, actually, app wouldnt be the correct term, i dont really know what you would call it) that uses the gpu for mathmatical functions. using the new CUDA (which is c/c++) architecure it would probably save a LOT of battery. but i think i need tegra chipsets for that.

 

[wdprice3]

I used to use ATK and killed all apps constantly. My DX was slow and had horrible battery life. When I bought my DX the VZW rep had me install ATK and told me to use it constantly or else my phone wouldn't work well (slow, no battery life etc). Well, after hearing about how android handles apps/processes I quit using ATK and holy crap, what an improvement. Battery is good all day long and the phone is much faster.

Just my 2 cents, but as most people have recommended, don't use task killers unless you need to kill a non-responsive/malfunctioning app. Your phone will appreciate it and run that much better.

 

[viper3773]

yeah rep installed atk for me too. i was like noooooo