Any real life problems with using Task Killers?

[shandroid]

After reading the dismay of using killers, I'm going to load one up, my memory has been dragging around 40-60mb's. I don't understand why apps like footprints or peep are always running when I don't use them and have turned off all activity via settings. Amazon ercks me, i wish i could uninstall.

I too want to hear a worse case scenario using killers.

 

[81_]

so its ok if i kill a program and that kills turns off all my network connections? ok

 

[marctronixx]

you are stuck in the mindset of other platforms and how they manage memory.

if you open up/use an app that needs more memory that is at present, the OS will kill the lesser used apps first to free up the memory you need for your current app. this is done under the hood with no interaction from you.

the android/Google forums tell you how memory is managed. the sticky thread up top of this forum explains it in plain english.

when you force close any app(s) with a task killer, you gain memory but you wont see any increase in anything performance related. this is because the OS is managing the memory already and knows what you need to run the app(s) in the current state of the device.

now, if you have a rogue app or a memory leak in an app and you force close said app, then you may very well see a performance increase since the android OS does not have to work overtime force closing other apps due to the increasing memory footprint of an app thats causing a leak.

task killers are placebo. if you want to use one, go ahead and close out apps to free up memory that you STILL wont be using since the OS knows how much you need and adjusts on its own at any given time. you are not helping anything other than increasing a bucket of memory that will STILL sit unused.

just leave the running programs open alone. when you call on them they will load faster because they are there waiting for you.

Maybe not an improvement in performance so to speak, but I enjoy seeing apps I'm not using not loaded, which leaves more free memory for other apps that I am using.

 

[dakidobf]

you are stuck in the mindset of other platforms and how they manage memory.

if you open up/use an app that needs more memory that is at present, the OS will kill the lesser used apps first to free up the memory you need for your current app. this is done under the hood with no interaction from you.

the android/Google forums tell you how memory is managed. the sticky thread up top of this forum explains it in plain english.

when you force close any app(s) with a task killer, you gain memory but you wont see any increase in anything performance related. this is because the OS is managing the memory already and knows what you need to run the app(s) in the current state of the device.

now, if you have a rogue app or a memory leak in an app and you force close said app, then you may very well see a performance increase since the android OS does not have to work overtime force closing other apps due to the increasing memory footprint of an app thats causing a leak.

task killers are placebo. if you want to use one, go ahead and close out apps to free up memory that you STILL wont be using since the OS knows how much you need and adjusts on its own at any given time. you are not helping anything other than increasing a bucket of memory that will STILL sit unused.

just leave the running programs open alone. when you call on them they will load faster because they are there waiting for you.

Now THATS an explanation!

 

[kmg]

Yeah, the thing is, even if ATK doesn't explicitly harm your phone, it's certainly not helping either. You gain nothing by killing apps that are idling in the background. None of the apps that come pre-installed on the phone demolish the battery or hold any memory while sitting idle, so if you're having problems in these areas then it's because of something you installed. Anything that is draining your battery or clogging your memory while it should be idle is broken, and should be killed. But I really seriously doubt that you have anything that does that on your phone, and if you do you should uninstall it immediately, plus the tools to kill a rogue process like this are already included in your phone. If you see any benefit from using a task killer then you are doing it wrong. Also, the apps you kill won't load up as fast when you actually need them, because they're not preloaded into memory. Use SystemPanel and stuff.

 

[flyjbaker]

This is a little theoretical mumbo jumbo I put on another thread and will just cut and paste here....

Anyway, I think the Android operating system is a great example of "chaos theory". A very short explanation is the first few sentences from Wikipedia:

Chaos theory is a field of study in mathematics, physics, economics and philosophy studying the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions. This sensitivity is popularly referred to as the butterfly effect. Small differences in initial conditions (such as those due to rounding errors in numerical computation) yield widely diverging outcomes for chaotic systems, rendering long-term prediction impossible in general.[1] This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future behaviour is fully determined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved.[2]

IOW, the "builders" of the android OS have no clue how developers will develop apps and therefore cannot determine the final outcomes as to how the app will affect the OS. It is those last words..."random elements" that throws a wrench in the spokes. There are lots of "random elements" running around inside our phones once we download everything we can get our hands on.

So, in theory, your initial posts and subsequent follow up posts are true regarding the OS. In reality, I will use ATK due to the unpredictable potential chaotic nature of how apps interact with each other and the OS.

 

[R1_Rydah]

I would like to hear from someone who has used a task killer that has done so much damage, that they had to wipe their phone.

I don't think you will get many "task killer horror stories" my guess is the "task killer mafia" are just parroting what they read somewhere... I've used atk on two devices without any problems

 

[freeza]

OK, so I guess the developers of task killers did it for nothing. and the 250,000+ people who download and use them are idiots for not knowing that Android does a fantastic job at everything. People who claim to have better battery life by using them are obviously wrong, and those who claim to gain performance from using them are wrong as well.

Here are the top five myths about the EVO\Android:
-Task Killers are useless, even if there are countless claims to their glory.
-Using the *#*#4636#*#* 'trick' to make the phone stop searching for a GSM signal from a GSM radio that doesn't even exist produces double the battery life.
-Using an overclocking widget to underclock the CPU on a phone that already supports CPU scaling right out of the box gains double the battery life as well.
-No matter how many programs are loaded into memory, it doesn't have any effect on anything at all whatsoever, because they aren't actually "doing" anything.
-Various battery 'tricks' produce seemingly endless days worth of battery life from people who barely use their phone as opposed to people who actually do use their phone, and magically, they get almost the same amount of battery life.

Just because the EVO has a fairly good amount of RAM does not mean task killers are useless, and do not gain the user anything from them. I challenge anyone who's actually done any real damage with one to come forward and stop quoting hearsay. I've used one from day one and have killed every process at least once to see the effect on the system it's had and let me tell you first hand that there were hardly ever any "weird anomalies" and I've never had any forced hard-resets, freezes, force closures, or any sort of weird things that some people magically experience with a task killer. There is no misconception of how Android handles memory. I just like using one, period. I already am well aware that it handles memory way better than Windows Mobile. However, If I am not using a program, I do not want it loaded. ATK as well as autostarts help accomplish that. It is worth the extra few hundred milliseconds of CPU cycles it takes to load up an app if I need to use it. If Android was perfect at doing everything from the get go, I highly doubt any of these programs to tweak things would have been made in the first place. As well as cooks who decide to tweak the Kernel's memory management. So no, task killers are not useless, and people who use them don't always have to be clueless as to how Android manages memory, and finally, those who claim performance gains are not always lying or are doing something wrong themselves to warrant using one to gain said performance.

 

[dr g]

Generally I stay away from task killers because they are another running service, which I keep to a minimum. I have seen tests that show running even a well-configured task killer eats up as much battery as it saves during heavy use.

I also didn't see much gain personally from task killers, and felt I was sacrificing a feature of the OS (program caching).

I get about 20 hours on the stock battery with 25-30% awake time.

 

[DHAndroid]

Its a give and take situation.

Task Killers became a habit of WinMo users who needed to kill tasks for more memory. While the Android "manages memory better" (which it does) that is not the reason why you should use a Task Killer esp on the Evo.

The reason why I would use a Task Killer on the Evo would be to kill the apps that are killing my battery. Not so much the resources (unless you are going crazy with tons of apps). I'm sure others have their own reasons but if its based on memory there is no need.

The downside as you know is that it can cause anomalous software glitches, sometimes it can go so bad where you will have to reflash the phone. If you are savvy enough to do this it shouldn't be a problem. If you know what to kill and can troubleshoot, a task killer shouldn't give you too many problems.

Thats why I use it - save battery. For instance the geo cache program uses the gps almost constantly, when exiting I want to be sure this app or a similar app is definitely closed. Memory, Linux takes care of itself for the most part. ATK does not drain any battery. Taking the phone off charge and not using it except to check a text or email a couple times an hour will use sometimes 5% an hour.

My setting.. Kill level on safe
Frequency..on screen close
Security lev High but moved it to Medium..hear high is recommended.