For users new to Android

Why You Shouldn’t Be Using a Task Killer with Android

I've read a few posts either way about whether or not people should use Task killers.

I'm going to keep using them as long as when I press the button, my phone speeds up and reacts more quickly.

Sorry to say it, but more fool you. Still, it's your phone.

Ive got a Galaxy S. Sometimes it comes to an unbearable hault. Im having to wait 20seconds for menu changes, loading App screen. Hit the kill button and everything happens a lot faster. I dont have the time or patience to wait for my phone to do what? How am I harming my phone?

If there is an API in any OS to kill a process, it should be safe to use it on user processes. If you start killing the system ones, you may crash the OS. But that's the worst that can happen. No permanent damage done.

What else are you supposed to do then? Have your phone running really slow until the phone decides to close the apps?!

Read the link in the first post.

Slowdowns like you seem to be experiencing will be due to a badly written app. I've been using Android for well over a year without using a task killer and have never seen it slow down etc.

Use a task killer if you like, it's your phone. You don't need one though.

I'll uninstall mine then and see how I get on.

Do the apps auto shutdown after a while of non use then?

Read the link in the first post. Please.

There's one fatal flaw in the argument though; applications being designed correctly and properly utilising the fact that Android has all these nice shiny resource management features.

The simple fact is that a lot of developers don't structure their applications correctly. This is evidenced by the fact that Android devices can and do slow down seriously when a lot of applications are running in the background. If these applications were allowing Android to correctly manage resources and CPU usage then these slowdowns simply wouldn't happen.

This is down to what is both the greatest strength and the greatest weakness of Android; there is no auditing & approval stage in application submission.

So in reality, using a task manger application to terminate badly written resource hungry applications is just something the Android community is going to have to live with.

I disagree, but if you want to believe that you need a task manager it's up to you.

how many people use
ctrl-alt-delete

I just use the built in task killer, I'm not convinced about that argument as I personally find the phones runs smoother if I kill the games I was playing and not leaving them in the background.

That would be great if apps actually closed when they were supposed to instead of sitting there slowing the phone down and eating the battery.

Once again, please read the link in the first post.

There is user feedback. A lot of the devs listen to user feedback and improve their app accordingly.

On my Desire I haven't used a task killer since the upgrade from 2.1 to 2.2, and honestly I've only had one "hang" in about 3 months, which lasted for about 5 seconds at most.

Could you explain why you disagree? Do you believe that all apps behave as they should 100% of the time and never cause performance issues?

It depends on what type of app it is and what you intend it to do. Most apps/games are just activity based ones and they get suspended when they leave focus, then restored when you go back in. While suspended they're not using any battery or proc, maybe a little bit of memory to store their "icicle" but that's managed by the OS and will be reclaimed in low memory situations.

The ones you have to watch for are apps with services. Services are background processes and these are the type that evade task killers as they normally restart themselves. Basically if an app needs to do something like checking a webservice, checking battery levels for widgets etc.

Even with services it's not that simple, to prevent the phone from sleeping the service needs to acquire a "wake lock". This requires it's own previllege so you should be able to spot any potential offenders as you're installing them.

Also, services use alarms to wake up to do there background work (how they get around task killers as they are sent a message and the system will start them if they are the registered receiver of a message). By default getting a resolution of under 30 minutes is not easy and the OS will decide if and when to wake up under that. Also, if you don't have the wake lock permission you can't ask to be woken while the device is sleeping.

What really sucks battery big time is connecting to the internet, so apps that poll like some twitter apps, site pings etc are bad for battery. However, as above they evade the task managers and can't run more than once every 30 minutes. Most of these apps are moving to Google's push notifications which has no significant impact on battery life.

The real battery killers are games, anything that uses the internet, GPS etc and when they are sucking up battery it's because you're letting them to perform a task.

Android really has no need for task killers and any advantage you get is partly confirmation bias and partly you temporarly killing things that you have installed to run the background and will come back anyway. Most of the "articles" I read saying you do are out of date or have little real facts in them, which is amazing considering how easy it is check this stuff.

The slow-downs are probably caused by a rogue app. Ideally you'd identify which app was responsible, and uninstall it (and tell the author why). Or if you must keep using it, just kill it. You might have more than one rogue app, but you shouldn't need to kill all apps indiscriminately.


Well, I imagine you could be left with files undeleted if the app didn't get a chance to clean up. The phone could misbehave generally, which could be worse than crashing. Generally, though, if you kill off an app the phone needs, it should get restarted, and although killing/restarting shouldn't have any serious ill effects, it will waste more CPU cycles and power.

I have read it, it doesn't change the fact that many apps do not do what they are supposed to do and need to be closed manually. The Battery on my Desire is bad enough without having a load of background crap draining it further. The way Android is supposed to work is great in theory, sadly it all goes a bit wrong when put into practice in the real world. The worst than can happen closing apps is the phone crashes, it won't explode or anything.

If you believe that apps arent written correctly then you shouldnt support those apps by having them on your phone

I'm not limiting my choices because some random person on the internet has got a bee in their bonnet about manually killing apps, anyway I want control over what happens on my phone, if I didn't I'd have a bought a Jesus Phone.

the link in post 1 isn't saying you have to kill apps. it is simply saying that the way android works, you don't need to

Another link for those who still insist on using a task killer.