Task killers anyone?

B

barrios229

New member
Hi,

I'm new to Android. Friends who has been on the platform for a while were immediately telling me "you need to get a good task killer". However, the concept of that doesn't sound right to me. You would want to close down programs, not kill them. In Linux which is my main OS killing tasks is only done if they are stuck or misbehaving. You do not use task killing as a way to free resources in general. In fact simply killing a program may cause problems next time it's run since settings and state isn't written properly (for programs that do that kind of thing).

So my question is: How come task killers seem to be safe to use on Android? And do I really need one?
 
No you really don't need one - http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/

I'm on my 3rd Android phone - G1 - HTC Magic - Nexus One and have never needed to use one. On occasion I do use the built in Application controls to force stop the browser, but only when I want to dump its cache due to space issues.
 
I am new to this fourm also, but I have found that the ATK is not really needed. A good program that was recommended is Android System Info, You get a good snapshot of what is going on in your phone and memory card. You can also kill a app is you need to.
 
Recently I have been turned on to an app called autokiller.

It sets the natural kill process a little more aggressive but does not tamper with androids natural ability to kill programs.
 
I've been doing some testing over the last few days with the two most popular task killers. It may be only me, but both of them slow my phone down over time. Yes, they do kill stuff, but the phone gets sluggish and hangs both when opening and closing much used apps like the dialer. I think I will do fine without a task killer. Never used one on Linux either.

Thank you guys for advice!
 
I'm not going to rehash why (just search the forum and/or google) -- but you don't need one.

If you're a super power user that has a billion apps installed, then sure. However, the typical user shouldn't need one. You should never use an auto killer.
 
I use one to kill the Google Maps, the Browser, and a few bigger things like a game after you quit. But thats about it.

Try using one for 3 days and kill tasks often, hit refresh and end all type of thing. Then the next 3 days don't use one and see what 3 days had better battery life n performance. They were helpful on the G1, but not phones like the Droid and better that have more memory
 
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