[POLL] Does anyone use Task managers/killers?

[Guest punkmilitia]

Do you use a task manager or task killer with your 2.2 Blades? if so which one?

I'm currently using Advanced Task Killer but don't know whether it is a good idea or not, please vote :D

Edited January 9, 2011 by punkmilitia

[Guest bagge]

I think its said task managers affect the android system in a negative way. I do have ATK installed but almost only use it when some app goes bananas and not to kill apps I'm done using. I'm running 2.1 though.

[Guest Arr Too]

No voting needed: it's not a good idea on 2.2.

[Guest Len Ash]

No voting needed: it's not a good idea on 2.2.

Unnecessary (Task Killer) - never ever needed on ANY Android phone. Set up correctly without crud.

[Guest gusthy]

Unnecessary (Task Killer) - never ever needed on ANY Android phone. Set up correctly without crud.

It is a very common misunderstanding of what task killers are good for.

It is a bad idea to use them to maintain memory. But if a task works (behaves) badly, you will need a task killer.

[Guest That-Guy]

I used to on 2.1 but not bothered on 2.2 and not seen any negative effects either :D

[Guest StevenHarperUK]

I used to on 2.1 but not bothered on 2.2 and not seen any negative effects either :D

Once in a while I need the task killer to Stop Titanium backup and re-start it.

[Guest Tripov]

Only if the event of an app going crazy.

[Guest Azurren]

Its good to have one for a "Ctrl+Alt+Delete" :D

Otherwise they just mess with android

[Guest Twiggeh]

I use the stock manager, but i only kill apps if they get borked somehow (for instance, Angry Birds had a nasty habit of getting stuck in some loop every now and then on stock 2.1, eating away my cpu. So i had to kill it through a manager), otherwise i just let them stay in the RAM.

[Guest Matthew Ferguson]

Do you use a task manager or task killer with your 2.2 Blades? if so which one?

I'm currently using Advanced Task Killer but don't know whether it is a good idea or not, please vote :D

A lot of people have said that ATK is the source of a lot of force closes and battery issues in the blade, it's not recommended as it does very little to speed up the phone.

[Guest Rotmann]

Be nice to your apps, don't kill them. There is a very good article on lifehacker on this, LINK

[Guest cartierv]

I think its said task managers affect the android system in a negative way. I do have ATK installed but almost only use it when some app goes bananas and not to kill apps I'm done using. I'm running 2.1 though.

There was one article someone wrote and suddenly task killers were 'bad'.

Unfortunately, however well intentioned Android was designed, in practice, it's just not reliable. And apps need a regular 'quit' after all. It should be up to the user whether or not he still wants an app running or not.

And as others have pointed out apps have a tendency to run amok on android. Interestingly some of the most 'foundational' apps in Android are also some of the most prone get stuck at 100% cpu: Gallery, Market, Internet.

Task killers are a necessary tool. But the best one I've used so far is the stock one.

There seems to be quite a few called "Advanced Task....*" with a green Coplandesque android character icon and a blue background when you launch.

[Guest Theme Ishere]

I like Advanced Taskkiller as a method of having a nice list of all running apps which can be accessed basically from everywhere (as you have the nice little Android in your notification bar). So I think it can be helpful as a tool to visualise what is going on in the background and occasionally kill an app that just doesn't want to do what you want it to.

[Guest targetbsp]

There was one article someone wrote and suddenly task killers were 'bad'.

That one original article being by the people that wrote Android who justified their position very convincingly? :D

You can use watchdog just to monitor troublesome apps rather than an auto task killer.

[Guest gusthy]

There was one article someone wrote and suddenly task killers were 'bad'.

Unfortunately, however well intentioned Android was designed, in practice, it's just not reliable. And apps need a regular 'quit' after all.

Froyo does this task much more efficiently than Eclair, I don't think it is neccesary to kill them manually except they behave bad. And on a device like Blade that has lots of memory, most of the apps are reliable.

[Guest wbaw]

I'm using Watchdog Lite from the market (free version), it just monitors for apps it thinks are misbehaving & using too much power, then notifies you & lets you kill them. It works pretty well, not too many false alarms & it does catch any greedy apps.

[Guest punkmilitia]

You see, the reason I used ATK was because i'd play a game (zenonia), browse the net a bit, check gmail then play another game and that game would lag because zenonia and other stuff was still running, how do I make it so they stop running after using them without ATK? 0_o

[Guest Rotmann]

Get Android System Info and close only the big tasks you don't need often like games. Also a very good idea is to get Autostarts (0,66€, worth every cent) from the market and disable rubbish from autostarting.

[Guest JolyonS]

Once in a while I need the task killer to Stop Titanium backup and re-start it.

Yeah, it's Titanium Backup most often for me too.

[Guest punkmilitia]

Thanks everyone for this debate, I decided to use Android Assistant instead of ATK as it seems better and more stable and it helps with when I want to stop using apps, ie: playing zenonia but get bored of it so I press home but the apps still running, so I just simply kill it with assistant.

[Guest mouseman99]

For those people using Watchdog, what are the settings you are using? I have the CPU alert on 30%. Swype/Angry Birds/Settings seem to be the 'apps' that get flagged the most and they seems to be random i.e. when not even being used.

Should I be killing these off when it happens or should I just increase the tolerance threshold of the CPU in Watchdog?

[Guest HypnoPig]

I have one on my San Francisco but I only ever use it if an app starts to play up - never to just poke around and "free up space" as some people no doubt do.

[Guest sharksoft]

I recommend you try Task Killer ProMax https://market.android.com/details?id=org.squalo.taskmanager

[Guest DannyDanny]

Use task killer if you want. (and unselect ones that needs to be there)

But really, just keeping task killer in my blade slows the system.

I thought I had a new phone when I deleted the ATK app.