OPINION: Should You Use A Task Manager for Android?

So you have finally realized that your android phone is becoming slow after installing (and uninstalling) hundreds of Apps. You search the internet for cure and find the counterpart of windows task manager for android which offers to speed up your system. You install it, configure it and pray that the system becomes like it was when you bought your phone. But alas, it doesn’t happen. You uninstall the app, find another one that claims to be better than the original and install it, but still no performance improvement. Some of you may even go for the paid ones, thinking that the paid ones might offer the promised performance jump but you are disappointed there as well and then you question yourself, Was it really worth it? Well, this blog post is an answer to this question of yours! So, Read Along.

What are Task Managers/Task Killers?

Task Managers/Task Killers are applications which forcefully kills applications. It is the android counterpart of Windows Task Manager. These Task managers claim to speed up your phone, increase the battery life by killing idle applications or processes. The increase in performance is claimed by freeing up the RAM on the phone. while the increase in battery life is said to be because of decreased CPU power consumption achieved due to closing the idle apps. These applications also say that the battery life increases because the application no longer constantly downloads advertisements in the background, which invariably leads to eating up the battery.

The counter point to the argument offered by the app makers is that the recent versions of Android utilizes RAM in a a totally different way than that on windows. So, more free RAM Does NOT mean faster phone. Those who oppose Task Managers say that older versions of android(1.6) may have needed it, but recent versions those especially above Froyo (Android 2.2+) definitely do not need it.

Stuff That Slows Your Phone & Eats into Battery life

Before I answer the ultimate question, let us see the things that DO slow down your phone. These are;

• Bad Applications: These are the ones that really slow down your phone. These are non-optimally written pieces of code that crash your system the moment you push it. So, my recommendation is to avoid such applications altogether. If you cannot do that then try to choose the one which has exit button!
• Advertisements: Yes, these constantly use the bandwidth of your phone to serve you with ads. Free applications are usually full of such ads. My recommendation is to again avoid such applications. If not possible, then ROOT Your Phone. This will enable you to use the firewall feature of Application such as Avast Antivirus. This will block all the ads on your phone.
• Good Applications That Crash: Now, sometimes even good applications due to no reason whatsoever freeze. These are another reason that decrease your phones performance.

So, Do You Really Need A Task Manager?

YES! You should; But, Yes there is a big BUT there. The Configuration of the application (Task Killer) should be done appropriately to get any benefit out of it. The application should be configured as follows;

1. Select a Task Manager that has feature of Ignoring selected applications,
2. Ignore the applications that you want to run continuously such as GMail, Facebook, WhatsApp, Gtalk, IMO etc.
3. Disable the Auto kill Feature. What? I hear you ask…Yes you heard it right, you need to disable the auto kill feature because it doesn’t help. The applications that get auto killed usually start again in 2-3 seconds, connect to the internet download ads/synchronize. ie they just take up system resources up for no reasons, not to mention consuming battery in the process as well.
4. Also, Ignore the applications that start on their own to download Ads/synchronize, for the above said reason. It is however, recommended to avoid using such applications altogether.
5. Use the Kill Feature only when any application Freezes/Crashes/Hangs.
6. That’s it!

Your Phone is now configured for performance! This should increase the performance of your phone by about 15-20% only not anything more than that. But, as it is, every last bit of performance and battery life matters when you are about to kill that Caw-Cawing Pig! (#AngryBirds)

Readers of this blog are encouraged to express their opinion on the matter by leaving a comment below.