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Ok our forums are rather in depth and involving, which makes finding information that could be rather old in the grand scheme of things but here's a question. How come when I go into my advance task killer there are always programs that I have not ran, running in the background and some of those programs I have never used. Every once I awhile I will get a dialog box saying that so many apps have between killed. Why is that?
Rastlin
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Some of these are necessary for the android system to function (like when you ctrl alt del in windows for example) others can be from things that update like weather widgets and others are just bloatware.
A lot of the things in the background that run are TSR programs, (terminate stay resident) Their impact is they take up some ram space but when these program ar not being used, they do not (or theoretically do not) have any impact on performance or battery. They facilitate speeding up the phone when they are called on to perform. This has been a standard in computing for 25 years. The most common or most needed routines are setup in this way.
oka1 said:
A lot of the things in the background that run are TSR programs, (terminate stay resident) Their impact is they take up some ram space but when these program ar not being used, they do not (or theoretically do not) have any impact on performance or battery. They facilitate speeding up the phone when they are called on to perform. This has been a standard in computing for 25 years. The most common or most needed routines are setup in this way.
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Click to collapse
THIS. However, if you still have bloatware installed, those programs could be doing behind the scenes business as well.
TheSneakerWhore said:
THIS. However, if you still have bloatware installed, those programs could be doing behind the scenes business as well.
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Click to collapse
I wish you guys would stop telling users this ..... Advanced Task Killer DO NOT report in a smart way .. It basically just shows what is cached in the phone's memory, giving the user the illusion that the system is out of or going to run out of memory .... The reason google stopped these task killers from killing other apps is because in its auto kill function, a task killer will bog down the system while fighting to kill apps only to have them re open ..... The phone has a built in task killer, which ONLY shows running apps ( ones that are using CPU and memory) and will use androids memory manager to stop them ... If you are on xda and have not already rooted your phone, I would advise you to do it, download autokiller memory optimizer... This is not a task killer but a tool used to tweak the system's built in memory manager .... Its 200% safer and will keep your phone running smooth ..also once rooted you can delete apps that concern you, but be warned, some apps may be needed by the system and deleting them might cause issues, so please use good old common sense .... hopes this helps ....
Task killers should now be a thing of the past. Newer android OS's 2.0 and above do a much better job at managing running tasks all by themselves. I now only use the included task killer if one app has completely hung on me which is rare. I don't use task managers to kill all running tasks when running benchmarks either because all that does is cause those necessary tasks to start back up during the bench and thus lowering the overall score. Cool, we just had an earthquake.
just get the xda super power app, no task killer needed, has app specific section, that you can confiure every app by itself to be killed on screen off if is running.
Having been an Android user for a while now, I'm familiar with the arguments for and against task killers and weather or not they hurt or help performance and battery life. My understanding is that "Background" apps will terminate and give up their allocated memory when needed.
For apps that run as a Service, even if you terminate them, they restart immediately. It would seem that if you have too many apps that want to run as services, then you would have issues with available memory.
is there any way to disable an app from running persistently? There are many apps I have installed that I really don't want them to run unless I launch them (pageonce, for example).
I can't understand something on android system.
When I boot my mini pro, I can see in a (for example) Open Advanced Task Killer lot of aps.. (see attachment)
Now I see Skype in a list of active processes. I do not understand is it now skype active and loaded in system? I asked this because I'm not signed in to skype, and it is configured to not loaded when system boot.
If not in which state are now all this apps?
I have same questions for other few programs, for example Samba file sharing. It is disabled in his config. I mean apk is not freezed. But it is loaded in processes list!
I see that all those aps eat memory, so y question is, is there any solution to disable this aps and load it only when I want to use it, and when I closed them to stayed disable!
Thx for help.
this app are in background.. it dosent effect much your system.. usually it is automatically loaded.. just kill/forcekill the app if you need more memory...
Nothing wrong with it, these programs just autorun in background for functionality purposes.
When you actually start using an app, android will automatically free up memory to make that app work.
Carpe-Dimi said:
Nothing wrong with it, these programs just autorun in background for functionality purposes.
When you actually start using an app, android will automatically free up memory to make that app work.
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Click to collapse
I think you didn't understand me..
These aps using my memory even they are not started and active..
That is the confusion at me!
like i said it just automatically loaded in background, if you want to free up memory you can just kill it...
if it is not being used at all you can just uninstall it.. but be perfectly sure if you uninstall a system app... it will free up memory and save battery life..
paradorx said:
like i said it just automatically loaded in background, if you want to free up memory you can just kill it...
if it is not being used at all you can just uninstall it.. but be perfectly sure if you uninstall a system app... it will free up memory and save battery life..
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Click to collapse
Thx..but, if they using my memory and "app's not running" then I do not understand the purpose why are loaded they?
Is there any solution to load they only when I need it, like in windows system?
I mean, when I close that app that it close fully and my memory freed up!
easyyu said:
I think you didn't understand me..
These aps using my memory even they are not started and active..
That is the confusion at me!
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Click to collapse
I completely understood you
these apps are given memory by the android OS to run in background. there they do simple things such as syncing and checking for updates, or other things that i don't know of. this is functional, because when you open the app, it won't take forever to load and do what u want it to do.
However...
If you open an application (so it actively runs in the foreground) and it needs memory, the android OS will take the memory from your background apps and give it to the foreground app to use.
so, nothing to worry about as it has a functional purpose and won't interfere with your actual phone usage
if you don't want apps to use a lot of memory tho, you could try setting the vm heap size to something lower. (I believe 32M is standard) but this also limits the memory usage of the foreground app.
Carpe-Dimi said:
I completely understood you
these apps are given memory by the android OS to run in background. there they do simple things such as syncing and checking for updates, or other things that i don't know of. this is functional, because when you open the app, it won't take forever to load and do what u want it to do.
However...
If you open an application (so it actively runs in the foreground) and it needs memory, the android OS will take the memory from your background apps and give it to the foreground app to use.
so, nothing to worry about as it has a functional purpose and won't interfere with your actual phone usage
if you don't want apps to use a lot of memory tho, you could try setting the vm heap size to something lower. (I believe 32M is standard) but this also limits the memory usage of the foreground app.
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Click to collapse
Thx for answer..but this still no option for me.
I wanted to "stoped" apps at boot, and just then used it when I need it. And when I exit from some app to free memory and fully exit from android system like in windows systems.
easyyu said:
I can't understand something on android system.
When I boot my mini pro, I can see in a (for example) Open Advanced Task Killer lot of aps.. (see attachment)
Now I see Skype in a list of active processes. I do not understand is it now skype active and loaded in system? I asked this because I'm not signed in to skype, and it is configured to not loaded when system boot.
If not in which state are now all this apps?
I have same questions for other few programs, for example Samba file sharing. It is disabled in his config. I mean apk is not freezed. But it is loaded in processes list!
I see that all those aps eat memory, so y question is, is there any solution to disable this aps and load it only when I want to use it, and when I closed them to stayed disable!
Thx for help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They are running on background and are programmed to start when booting ur phone, some apps like IM+ has the option to disable it, try doing it...
Hope it helps
XxLordxX said:
They are running on background and are programmed to start when booting ur phone, some apps like IM+ has the option to disable it, try doing it...
Hope it helps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But most of them have not, and thats the problem!!
For example, skype and many other.
Hey...not sure if this has been answered before or not but im trying to figure out battery draining issues and one of things ive always used is ram optimizers...I have Android Booster and Android Assisant ....and then i also use the built in task manager to clear memory...shouldbi be using these apps or are they draining the battery by running in the background? They seem to clean up a nice amount of memory....and keep my phone running fast....just dont know much about them...
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I do not think that by cleaning your RAM, you can reduce power consumption by RAM.
Actually, you do increase it. Android itself closes unnecessary applications when needed to clear memory. But, when you clean memory, either by task manager, or some custom tools, you are basically forcing applications to close and restart unnecessarily. I would say, it is additional load on CPU, and thus on battery.
For most applications, exactly startup and finish times are most expensive in terms of CPU load and battery. And most well-designed applications will not drain your battery when paused.
Reminds me of RAM cleaner programs for Windows machines, that would simply trigger excessive page faults.
while i agree with most of what you posted, there are 2 major flaws in your logic:
1. you talk about closing apps that restart on their own, but not many apps actually do that. sure, widgets, services, your launcher, communication apps and syncing apps need to run in the background, but certainly there are other apps eating away the battery, that need to be fully closed, when not needed. kies air or wifi file explorer come to mind. some of those apps don't fully close through the back button and must be killed from a task manager to save battery.
2. you say apps are paused. that is not necessarily true. many apps are capable of fully running in the background, after all, we are talking android and not iOS. we have full multitasking and apps are not generally suspended. say, you want to play a game for the first time and it needs to download more data. you can do whatever you want with your phone, open a dozen other apps, browse and listen to music, that download will continue in the background. this might fill up the ram over time, if you never close an app or apps do not allow direct closing.
there is a reason why samsung supplied the phone with a built-in task manager.
some apps are not well made and don't quit properly and need to be killed that way and killing off unnecessary apps (that won't restart) makes sense.
and let's not forget apps that get stuck but don't force close. they need to be killed as well. what else are you gonna do? restart the phone? certainly that wastes way more power than a restart of a few services.
every time you have a look at the samsung task manager or the "running" panel of "manage applications" and you use 500 something MB of ram and kill all apps, it will go down to something like 200 something, then the services restart and you are back up to maybe close to 300 (all numbers vary on your rom and apps). given that situation permanently saving 40% of ram is certainly a good reason to kill apps before you put the phone in your pocket.
I guess, then, it is best practice to kill all apps from task manager, a few times a day, especially after using several different applications and closing them. Applications that are needed will be restarted automatically.
I am not sure about running so called "RAM optimizers" constantly, though. When you are using your phone, it simply introduces more lags. Otherwise, it does nothing, if you have cleared RAM after heavy usage.
mirbeksm said:
I guess, then, it is best practice to kill all apps from task manager, a few times a day, especially after using several different applications and closing them. Applications that are needed will be restarted automatically.
I am not sure about running so called "RAM optimizers" constantly, though. When you are using your phone, it simply introduces more lags. Otherwise, it does nothing, if you have cleared RAM after heavy usage.
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killing itself is not necessary in the 1st part.
the more the memory android uses the better the apps behave, thats how android is desinged.
if you people still want to release some memory just use the samsung task manager ot clear memory or "fast reboot" from market.
Thx for the posts...i deleted the 2 android apps for now to see if theres a difference...i will trybusing just the built in task manager for a few days and see how that goes. But for example i mainly use my phone for words with friends...facebook...twitter and instagram....when i run the built in task manager it frees up mabye 200mb of ram....then i would run android booster which would clean up another 200mb and would close stuff like facebook...and tweetcaster and so on....the built in task manager doesnt seem to pick up on and close everything it should...which is why i downloaded the others...my phone has 800+ mb available and i usually find that ots using 500 of those 800 at all times...i wouldbfind myself constantly closing stuff with the optimizers...but like you said...they just open up in the background again anyway. Im rooted and have got rid of all the safe stuff to get rid of and the funny thing is i still dont see much of a difference in ram consumption...i think of ram as important cause it keeps things running smooth with no lag...not sure what to do i guess...ill try it like this without the optimizers and see how things go and download them again if i get bad lag...what i really need is a actual list of my phones internal software so i can get rid of the rest of the unneeded system files...ive found similar lists..but never a list of my actual phone...theres certain stuff running on my phone that isnt in the lists ive found so i left them with the worry that i may have to reinstall the rom if i delete the wrong thing...im also a android noob...only 2 months of using it so far so ive got tons more learning to do...thx for the opinions tho...keep em coming if you got em!
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It 'just a habit of many displaying applications in the background to go on the Android Market and install a task killer for fear that some application in the background throughout the battery consumption and slow down the phone memory consuming.
First Step
Android is the son of Linux and not Windows, Windows programs make sense that clean and optimize your memory, not in linux and behaves the same way if you have 10 or 100MB of free memory.
How to manage Android applications
Android applications and processes have defined 3 stages:
1) Running
2) Break In
3) Stopped
Each application runs in its own process when Android starts the process need to be made and ends when no longer needed, it lives in its own world and its code running is isolated from the rest with a Virtual own machine, it is assigned an ID whose permissions are visible to the user and 'application.
If an application needs to share files with another application creates a unique ID to save memory with a single Virtual Machine she shared.
Services are active as long as they need as well as activities that require the data connection and every process of Android. To understand whether an application or any process needs to connect and see if there are updates that it is active so that makes this operation.
It is not good or terminate these operations because the process will start all over again immediately active or when we are going to open an application it will take longer to open.
All processes are terminated when there is no longer needed or when the memory required by other processes.
If a user leaves a task for a long time, the system deletes all activities except the root, and when the user returns to the task it is like you had left.
An application is running when in fact you're running and is the first system plan
When it is no longer at the center of the 'attention but can still be visible is paused and can be killata by the system in case of need for extreme lack of memory
Finally, the application is blocked, but retains all the information is no longer visible on the screen and is in the background, can be killata from Android for any other activity that requires memory.
Summing Android is designed to kill the tasks when
You need more memory
They finished their work
Are not used for a long time
Kill process "by hand" can lead to side effects such as non-receipt of messages, slowdowns, crashes, etc. widget
The majority of applications closes with the BACK button and in any case by pressing the HOME Android close the task after it has been in the background for a certain period of time.
The majority of services running in the background using very little memory when they are not doing something so all other processes (reporting, etc.)
Domada: But why do I open google maps, facebook etc. mail.
These programs are not actually "open" if you notice are all programs that need a network connection, when you turn on the phone they do nothing but check for updates and notifications and then close.
If these activities killiamo happens that most of them will re-open to start all over again or take longer to open when we need them, or worse, will not give us accurate and up to date or will not work properly as well as make a lot more processor.
stempox said:
It 'just a habit of many displaying applications in the background to go on the Android Market and install a task killer for fear that some application in the background throughout the battery consumption and slow down the phone memory consuming.
First Step
Android is the son of Linux and not Windows, Windows programs make sense that clean and optimize your memory, not in linux and behaves the same way if you have 10 or 100MB of free memory.
How to manage Android applications
Android applications and processes have defined 3 stages:
1) Running
2) Break In
3) Stoppati
Each application runs in its own process when Android starts the process need to be made and ends when no longer needed, it lives in its own world and its code running is isolated from the rest with a Virtual own machine, it is assigned an ID whose permissions are visible to the user and 'application.
If an application needs to share files with another application creates a unique ID to save memory with a single Virtual Machine she shared.
Services are active as long as they need as well as activities that require the data connection and every process of Android. To understand whether an application or any process needs to connect and see if there are updates that it is active so that makes this operation.
It is not good or terminate these operations because the process will start all over again immediately active or when we are going to open an application it will take longer to open.
All processes are terminated when there is no longer needed or when the memory required by other processes.
If a user leaves a task for a long time, the system deletes all activities except the root, and when the user returns to the task it is like you had left.
An application is running when in fact you're running and is the first system plan
When it is no longer at the center of the 'attention but can still be visible is paused and can be killata by the system in case of need for extreme lack of memory
Finally, the application is blocked, but retains all the information is no longer visible on the screen and is in the background, can be killata from Android for any other activity that requires memory.
Summing Android is designed to kill the tasks when
You need more memory
They finished their work
Are not used for a long time
Kill process "by hand" can lead to side effects such as non-receipt of messages, slowdowns, crashes, etc. widget
The majority of applications closes with the BACK button and in any case by pressing the HOME Android close the task after it has been in the background for a certain period of time.
The majority of services running in the background using very little memory when they are not doing something so all other processes (reporting, etc.)
Domada: But why do I open google maps, facebook etc. mail.
These programs are not actually "open" if you notice are all programs that need a network connection, when you turn on the phone they do nothing but check for updates and notifications and then close.
If these activities killiamo happens that most of them will re-open to start all over again or take longer to open when we need them, or worse, will not give us accurate and up to date or will not work properly as well as make a lot more processor.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know I'm likely to get criticised by some for saying this but some of us have to use task killers.
My phone has an average of 140 mb free after it boots up. Add to that apps that stay in ram even when you close them and you can have as little as thirty or fourty mb free.
I've seen apps such as facebook and tapatalk, and even some games, taking up ram even though I don't want them used once I exit from them...and when my phone gets to around fifty mb free or less it can get slow and unresponsive.
A quick kill of un needed apps makes the os perform as it should again.
It's nice to say android clears up ram as needed, and it does, but try playing a decent hd game when your ram is low and, unless you kill some apps first, you're left with a black frozen screen while it tries clearing some ram. In some cases your phone can be unusable for a while, on mine when this happens the capacitive buttons stop responding to keypresses.
Now on ics with 1 gb ram this isn't an issue but for those of us with less ram and / or an older os it is.
Ideally we could configure non system apps so that if we don't want them in ram when finished with them then they cannot auto restart.
It is a simple fact that two identical phones will perform differently if one has lots of free ram and one has most ram in use, I use an on demand task killer so that apps that stay around on exit can be stopped from eating ram and slowing my phone down so for me a task killer is not pointless specifically because it frees up ram so that something memory intensive can be run without slowing my system while android tries to make room for it.
So while I agree with the theory, in practice task killers can be useful or at least on demand ones can.
Dave
( http://www.google.com/producer/editions/CAownKXmAQ/bigfatuniverse )
Sent from my LG P920 using Tapatalk 2
I agree with how Linux handles its applications. I switch between WinXP and Ubuntu and the overall way tasks are utilized are similar, but linux does a better job at handling running applications. On windows i have Chrome open and with 9 tabs open im hitting 1.5 gb ram used. Same situation on linux i find myself hitting around 500mb of ram used. Im sure this applies to android as well.
On a side note i find that people who "Kill Tasks" are just running them because they can and are usually fixated on seeing a large amount of ram free. It just adds another reason to stay on their device. Just my opinion.
An alternative to task killers for rooted devices are apps that blocks app from running at triggers so nothing is killed at all; the apps don't run.
Eg: the autostarts app.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using Xparent ICS Tapatalk 2
gruntparty said:
On a side note i find that people who "Kill Tasks" are just running them because they can and are usually fixated on seeing a large amount of ram free. It just adds another reason to stay on their device. Just my opinion.
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Click to collapse
I use one to make sure my phones already low ram does not drop so low my phone becomes slow, which it does when you get to even just fifty mb free ram left. And to kill those applications which do not exit properly.
On an android phone that has 512 mb ram if ram gets eaten up the phone goes slow, and I know it is not just me because other users with similar setups have same issues. So I think it is too general an assumption to say we all use task killers for say a cosmetic rather than practical reason though I'm sure some do.
Dave
( http://www.google.com/producer/editions/CAownKXmAQ/bigfatuniverse )
Sent from my LG P920 using Tapatalk 2
Markuzy said:
An alternative to task killers for rooted devices are apps that blocks app from running at triggers so nothing is killed at all; the apps don't run.
Eg: the autostarts app.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using Xparent ICS Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately this only stops apps auto starting at boot and once you have used an app and exited it, a lot stay in ram.
Some restart when killed some don't but when your phone is on permanently as many are, having low ram can quickly be a problem.
I think part of that is the phone manufacturer as 512 mb ram, with just 140 mb free at boot, is rubbish on a dual core 3D phone but whatever the cause I find killing tasks helps make phone run better.
Dave
( http://www.google.com/producer/editions/CAownKXmAQ/bigfatuniverse )
Sent from my LG P920 using Tapatalk 2
I used to kill tasks when i was on Android 2.1 an 2.3, but since 4.0 i feel my phone gone strangely fast, and i don't need to use task killers anymore. Phone is LG GT540, so...
lewymaro said:
I used to kill tasks when i was on Android 2.1 an 2.3, but since 4.0 i feel my phone gone strangely fast, and i don't need to use task killers anymore. Phone is LG GT540, so...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used to love my gt540. Didn't know you could run ics on it though, good phone for the price but didn't like the resistive screen though the phone itself can take some serious punishment and still keep working.
I love lg for their build quality, pretty hard to break them with dropping etc, but unfortunately they do bad with the software side.
Dave
( http://www.google.com/producer/editions/CAownKXmAQ/bigfatuniverse )
Sent from my LG P920 using Tapatalk 2
Good topic, I don't like the task killer!
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In general, yes task killers are bad. But occasionally it IS necessary to kill an app. Sometimes an app will freeze. Then it needs to be killed to be able to use it again. But you can easily just go into Settings > Applications > Manage Applications, find the app and then Force Stop it. So there's no real need to have a task killer. Although I do like to have Watchdog on my phone, as it shows the amount of available CPU cycles being taken up by each app, so you can make sure background apps aren't using too much CPU. (It does also show RAM usage, but it sorts apps by CPU usage, by default at least).
Linux has nothing to do with the management of an application, the applications under Android are sandboxed in java and there is this dalvik machine that takes care of everything.
I don't get why people keep mentioning this kernel over and over, also for the biggest part of its history Android did not use a real linux kernel with vanilla flavour, only recently the Android kernel was merged with the linux kernel mainline.
This is one of the very first Google video about Android http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm6Ju0xhUW8
edit: In this series of videos there are also references to memory management and app management.
Markuzy said:
An alternative to task killers for rooted devices are apps that blocks app from running at triggers so nothing is killed at all; the apps don't run.
Eg: the autostarts app.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using Xparent ICS Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are right
I do the same thing
In cm9 you can enable auto close apps with long press back button
So I don't need a task killer
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