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Advanced Task Killer users read this.

So after reading a few more threads the general concensus is to not use task killers? I guess I was uncomfortable just "backing out" of a program versus seeing a close option. I read that it dynamically uses resources. I don't know if it has affected my battery life as I get pretty good usage out of it. I will uninstall it though and see if I have any negative effects/improvements. I am new to android and loving it. Always up for suggestions.

read the link I posted above. It addresses why killing task isn't a good thing for your battery
 
Well, tbh I noticed a difference when using high quality scrolling on the Launcher Pro app. It would begin to get bogged down due to resources, then I choose to kill stuff that was open in the background. That's the only time I kill a few selected processes.
 
Ran a test on my X today. Installed ATK and let it run on the highest settings at the shortest intervals. after running for about an hour, I checked back with Running Services. Guess what I found running. Everything.

No you found a bunch of preloaded apps that are just setting there in case you need them. They are doing nothing!
Read the links and sdk.
 
If you understand how it worked you wouldn't use one at all. If you have a badly misbehaving app find it and kill/remove it. don't kill 99 other task to get one. If you ask me task killers are for lazy people.

Are you saying my post was FOR using task killers? No! It was neither for nor against using them. It was to make people THINK what they actually do and what apps they install and make them UNDERSTAND what they are doing not just do them.
 
Are you saying my post was FOR using task killers? No! It was neither for nor against using them. It was to make people THINK what they actually do and what apps they install and make them UNDERSTAND what they are doing not just do them.

nope sorry if it seemed that way. I was agreeing with you. But if you or anyone really understood how the system worked you would not use one except to track down misbehaving task.
 
on a side note, i just went into the setting for my ATK and it wont let me select the auto kill function?

The entire menu of options for it is blacked out/tinted and i cannot select anything?
 
on a side note, i just went into the setting for my ATK and it wont let me select the auto kill function?

The entire menu of options for it is blacked out/tinted and i cannot select anything?

It probably killed itself lol
 
I have ATK, and I don't monitor my apps all that much. I basically only use it before I go sleep to kill all tasks that don't need to be running, and when I find the phone lagging due to an unknown app. ATK is fine in that regard and doesn't drain the battery as others might assume. Otherwise, it is perfectly fine to use your memory. The OS is pretty efficient aside from buggy apps.

My settings is simple: set Auto Kill Level to Disable so you just manually force kill apps.
 
I used ATK on my Droid 1 thinking it would help with battery life.

I got my DX this week and installed ATK. My goal is to improve battery life.

One thing I do notice with the DX is that when I hit the ATK button, it has a lot more running tasks than my D1 ever did. I'd say twice as many than D1.

Anyone know why?
 
I used ATK on my Droid 1 thinking it would help with battery life.

I got my DX this week and installed ATK. My goal is to improve battery life.

One thing I do notice with the DX is that when I hit the ATK button, it has a lot more running tasks than my D1 ever did. I'd say twice as many than D1.

Anyone know why?

Bloatware
 
Turn it off and see.

Here's a good article on why not to use them. The OP was using it to the extreme and as you can see that's not good. If you use them on apps that aren't even running you save nothing. If you kill a running task well it was running for a reason. If you have a crazy run away app kill it and remove it.

Do you guys go around killing the task on your PC?

FAQ: Why You Shouldn’t Be Using a Task Killer with Android Geek For Me – Sprint Evo 4g & CDMA Hero

Myth: Android devices need task killers | Smartphones - InfoWorld

Actually, while some apps you should keep the process running because you'll be coming back to it, it's a good idea to kill a task when you're done with something like a game. Information is cached to be quickly brought back up when needed. Once the cache on the cpu is full, these process's move over to the ram, when that's full android kills data not been used(like that game you finished with 2 hour ago) to make room for the new process. Problem people run into is killing things they shouldn't be (don't kill off stock apps even if you don't use them, they just re-run again). The cpu will have to drag the data is needs up from a slow flash drive instead of the instantly fast L2? cache (I don't know anything about these ARM and ARM based architectures) or a slower ram module. That's why performance decreases. You can use task killers. And yes, I use windows task manager often when I benchmark and game, but mostly to get rid of that annoying program that won't close.
 
My phone started rebooting randomly, so I uninstalled ATK.

It has been running much smoother, and I haven't noticed a substantial decrease in battery life.

Don't plan to go back. It was such a pain worrying about what is running anyways. Just uninstall, and use the phone. I am pretty sure your battery problems are caused by apps and not the lack of a TK.
 
The simple fact is a task killer allows you to control what you want to run in the background. I use Advanced Task Manager and it works great. Got tired of having 5mb of ram and everything getting laggy on my droid x.
 
So? What does that do for you?

It allows my Droid to keep the programs I want in memory and not let the programs I don't want close out the programs I do want.

It's simple. Using Advanced Task Manager (I think is a different program than ATK), allows everything I want to run, run better. When I open all apps it scroll's smoothly all the time now, it was always getting shutdown my another app which forced it to cache all over again.
 
Bloatware

My guess is it has more ram to prefetch apps for you. But again this is not windows in most cases they are not running. (read the links)

Bloatware is kind of like trash One mans bloatware is another mans cool app. :D It really should be uninstallable though.
 
Actually, while some apps you should keep the process running because you'll be coming back to it, it's a good idea to kill a task when you're done with something like a game. Information is cached to be quickly brought back up when needed. Once the cache on the cpu is full, these process's move over to the ram, when that's full android kills data not been used(like that game you finished with 2 hour ago) to make room for the new process. Problem people run into is killing things they shouldn't be (don't kill off stock apps even if you don't use them, they just re-run again). The cpu will have to drag the data is needs up from a slow flash drive instead of the instantly fast L2? cache (I don't know anything about these ARM and ARM based architectures) or a slower ram module. That's why performance decreases. You can use task killers. And yes, I use windows task manager often when I benchmark and game, but mostly to get rid of that annoying program that won't close.

Where did you get the info that the save state is cached in the cpu L2 cache? I don't think that is correct.

My point about using task manger to kill task on a PC was that some use ATK to kill EVERYTHING and no one in their right mind would do the same on a windows machine. So why on a smart phone which is basically a computer that makes calls? Those task and services are there for a reason.

Of course we use it for badly misbehaving task and I have no problem using ATK that same way. But auto killing stuff just to kill stuff generally does nothing but mess up your phone.

I still see people claiming it helps them. Well they probably have one app causing their problems but to kill it they kill 20 others in the hope they get it. The problem is they still have the bad app installed and it is still acting badly. But now they have weird things happening because they killed their Home screen the phone service. IMO ATK is a lazy mans fix.

I also wonder how many of these phones with ATK get returned as defective because the stupid carriers tell people to install them and they set them to SUPER kill?
 
My guess is it has more ram to prefetch apps for you. But again this is not windows in most cases they are not running. (read the links)

Bloatware is kind of like trash One mans bloatware is another mans cool app. :D It really should be uninstallable though.

I initially thought it was more RAM, but now I don't have much running in the background ever since I went to the settings of each app. It's too bad I cannot do anything about the bloatware as AmazonMP3 and Blockbuster have no reason to pop up once in a while. And learn how to use multi-quote.
 
It's simple. Using Advanced Task Manager (I think is a different program than ATK), allows everything I want to run, run better. When I open all apps it scroll's smoothly all the time now, it was always getting shutdown my another app which forced it to cache all over again.

So find the "other" bad app and remove it. ATM is nothing more than a task killer. I don't use one and my phone scrolls just fine.

How do you have it set up BTW?

I'm not saying these things can't be used intelligently but most people have just enough knowledge to be dangerous, or none at all, and are also using Windows knowledge for a Linux based system.

Well I've been looking at ATM and how do you make it so the apps you kill do not come back?
I have 36 meg free I kill an app and it's back by the time I scroll to the bottom of the list.
I killed multiply apps and went from 36 to 63 megs free for about 2 minutes.
It would make more sense to me to have an app the tells the system not to pre- load the app rather than killing them over and over all day long. Am I missing an option here?
 
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