Are Task Killers Bad?

[Gamer819]

Wanted to ask the pro's here if task killers are bad for the system? I have always used one but have recently read that they can damage the system. Being that I have fell in love all over again with my tab (thx to the Gingercomb rom), I would rather not damage it.

[petrus]

Wanted to ask the pro's here if task killers are bad for the system? I have always used one but have recently read that they can damage the system. Being that I have fell in love all over again with my tab (thx to the Gingercomb rom), I would rather not damage it.

From what I've read : before gingerbread (including froyo : 2.2) : they were useful as the android system didn't handle well ending old tasks.

From gingerbread (2.3.X) the system task manager does it quite well and ends tasks that are in the background for too long. In fact from a developper point of view, apps have to handle a state where they can be halted, then resumed. So they can be stopped when put in the background for too long or halted when a phone call occurs. An then cleanly resumed with a restore of their state...

So from a developer point of view, task killers are pointless if you have android > 2.2

[Finless]

Task killers can be bad. If you kill a task while it is writing something to /data or your SDcard, it can corrupt the files system. Android can handle /data since it is ext4 but your sdcard with FAT32 can be easily corrupted and thus remounted as read only.

Bob

[Gamer819]

From what I've read : before gingerbread (including froyo : 2.2) : they were useful as the android system didn't handle well ending old tasks.

From gingerbread (2.3.X) the system task manager does it quite well and ends tasks that are in the background for too long. In fact from a developper point of view, apps have to handle a state where they can be halted, then resumed. So they can be stopped when put in the background for too long or halted when a phone call occurs. An then cleanly resumed with a restore of their state...

So from a developer point of view, task killers are pointless if you have android > 2.2

Thanks for the quick reply. I will not be installing one with the new Finless rom.
P.S. Outstanding work on the injector. Good stuff!

Thanks as well Bob!

[petrus]

From what I've read : before gingerbread (including froyo : 2.2) : they were useful as the android system didn't handle well ending old tasks.

From gingerbread (2.3.X) the system task manager does it quite well and ends tasks that are in the background for too long. In fact from a developper point of view, apps have to handle a state where they can be halted, then resumed. So they can be stopped when put in the background for too long or halted when a phone call occurs. An then cleanly resumed with a restore of their state...

So from a developer point of view, task killers are pointless if you have android > 2.2

Finless is right about the IO problem if tasks are halted uncleanly while writing.
And more information about older apps (written for pre-2.2) that don't handle cleanly being shut down by the system, they can cause Force Close when put in the background. But there are not much apps that have not been updated to handle this.

So, yes, you should avoid task killers and let the android do itd job on that area.
And to go further : memory managers can be bad too : you should just let the android os manage free ram, and not have an app try to do things the system is note aware of...

[petrus]

Thanks for the quick reply. I will not be installing one with the new Finless rom.
P.S. Outstanding work on the injector. Good stuff!

Thanks as well Bob!

Thanks Always good to hear good reviews
I do it for fun, and it's even more fun when people like it