Kill Android Task Killers

When you buy yourself a new Android based device, the carrier rep usually gives you a quick-rundown of the phone and explains a few things to you. If the representative at your carrier doesn't give you a rundown, I'm sure a friend who has been behind the driver's seat of an Android has given you some advice on how to use your phone and what apps to get. Nine out of ten times, either the rep or your trusted friend will tell you to install a Task Manager/Killer to help with your phones smoothness and battery life. (Yes, even my dumbass self was guilty of this; but I've gotten smarter.)

The truth is, these task killers and the Android OS work against one another. Task killers are redundant and unnecessary. They more often than not cause more harm than good. So why are they bad, how do they actually cause harm? It seems like it's working and my battery life is better, sadly it's a placebo effect and your battery is the same as it would be without it.

Unlike a PC where you manage memory by closing programs , Android (2.2 and on) manages memory and processes on its own. Let's say you launch an application, this app will stay in the memory until it needs to be closed. Android does this to improve the apps launch time. The app will "run" in the background and actually leaves the battery and performance unaffected.

If a previously launched app is kept in memory, launching it again at a later time will take less time. Killing the app removes it from the memory and slows down the launch time for its next use. Android automatically "kills" apps as needed, starting with the ones that have been inactive the longest.

Many of the task killers come with a 'kill all' or 'autokill' option. Whitson Gordon of Lifehacker explain why these options are terrible:

"... it's actually possible that this will worsen your phone's performance and battery life. Whether you're manually killing apps all the time or telling the task killer to aggressively remove apps from your memory, you're actually using CPU cycles when you otherwise wouldn't - killing apps that aren't doing anything in the first place.

In fact, some of the processes related to those apps will actually start right back up, further draining your CPU. If they don't, killing those processes can cause other sorts of problems - alarms don't go off, you don't recieve text messages, or other related apps may force close without warning. All in all, you're usually better off letting your phone work as intended - especially if you're more of a casual user"

Now what if your app goes rogue and starts acting crazy and eats up your CPU? Android has a "force stop" feature built in, making any third party task manager app pointless.

But, how would you even know if an app has gone rogue? Not all task killers are alike, and not all are even bad. For instance, an application called Watchdog monitors your CPU (instead of RAM) and alerts you if an app is acting up. Then, you can kill only the app that is causing the issue, and not everything running on your phone.

Since the introduction of Froyo (Android 2.2), task killers have been plaguing Android users, stealing performance, battery life and sanity. Spread the word to all your fellow Androidians to get rid of any task manager they have installed and to get Watchdog Lite (Free Version). And for Christ's sake, if you hear a carrier rep tell someone to install a task killer, simply tell them you would like to improve your phone's performance, not kill it.