Annoying Froyo Apps (Skype, VZW Navigator, Amazon Music)

[778EB17]

After upgrading to Froyo, the following applications are constantly opening up on their own even when I shut them down with Advanced Task Killer...

Amazon MP3
VZW Navigator
Skype Mobile
My Verizon Mobile


Is rooting the phone the only way to uninstall these annoying programs? I am sure it is using up the battery life / memory by always opening... does anyone have any suggestions?


Edit... Even The Weather Channel which I installed is opening itself back up constantly

 

[The_Profeshenal]

I downloaded Auto Memory Manager it takes what Android already does and lets you customize how much memory you want available and how aggressively you want to keep it there. Might help with your issue.

 

[Axel]

FYI, constantly killing apps that reopen anyway is one of the reasons task killers can drain batteries.

Unless they're actually doing something in the background, apps in memory don't use the CPU, which means they don't drain the battery. But every time you close it and it reopens, it has to load itself from storage to memory again, which does use the CPU and drains the battery.

Obviously, the ideal would be to stop them from opening in the first place, but as far as I know you need to be rooted to do that (there's a root-only program called Autostarts.

 

[MysticalDreams]

I keep reading task killer programs hurt you more than help you. From draining the battery like Axel said to actually causing conflicts with software.

I haven't used a task killer never installed one and everything works fine (except my reception!!) you can kill tasks thru settings so I don't see the need to have a program that would save you a few steps but conflicts with other programs.

I would try removing the task killer before rooting if you aren't comfortable rooting.

 

[tnhockey]

yea this issue sucks, my battery didnt last for **** today (got the upgrade this morning)

 

[furbearingmammal]

Ditch the task killer.

 

[zypherius01]

"Froyo" and task killers just my 2¢

From what I have been reading from a lot of post on forums, I came to understand that "Froyo" has a built in task killer. so using a task killer only makes the problem worse.The problem I was having was I would task kill and 1 second later 17 more apps were open. I thought it was cause stupid carrier preloaded Skype and all these services that have to constantly run and when I task killed they would restart sucking juice from the battery. I uninstalled my "advance task killer" and tried like a few people have done and let the new software do its job. I have noticed a LARGE improvement.Also I have started using the back button, rather then just tapping home, to get out of apps as that's now how "Froyo" kills the apps. Also i have noticed, on the Easter egg of holding down the home key, that there is a utility called Rosie utility. I am not certain for 100% but I think that might be the "Froyo" Task kill.
Hope this help anyone out there that factory reset twice cause I didn't want to read

Pickle!

 

[furbearingmammal]

:welcome: to the forum, Zypherius01!

 

[tech94]

rosie utility has been there from day one. seems to be of some use for the wimax system on evo 4g. but since the incredible and evo share much of the same software it appears on our incredible

 

[zypherius01]

Thanx furbear. Sorry Tech I don't know all the dll's on a phone.
But removing the task killer has helped me a lot. I use the back button to exit aps now.
Before I was just hitting the home button.
Seems Froyo has its own task killing abilities.

 

[furbearingmammal]

FroYo has a built-in task killer and it doesn't play nicely with external ones -- which really never helped Android performance. The explanation is very detailed, but basically the phone is good at swapping memory around. Very good.

 

[w40d1n1]

Conflict of Interest

I work for a competitor of Skype (Skype are a commercial for-profit business). Employees of our company should not be forced to have a competitor's software running on our smart phones. Even if Skype says the software isn't doing anything, how am I to know it isn't listening in the background the next time I am in a meeting somewhere?

Task killers aside, Shame on Verizon for forcing unwanted software on to Verizon users.

 

[MysticalDreams]

I work for a competitor of Skype (Skype are a commercial for-profit business). Employees of our company should not be forced to have a competitor's software running on our smart phones. Even if Skype says the software isn't doing anything, how am I to know it isn't listening in the background the next time I am in a meeting somewhere?

Task killers aside, Shame on Verizon for forcing unwanted software on to Verizon users.

This is very common in the corporate world. Deals and profits make the bottom-line. There is no way any one company can please all of its users 100% of the time so they need to rely on the deals they can make and hope for the best.

Droid give us freedoms that Apple doesn't. Apple can offer things droid can't so no matter which way a user goes there will be issues.

If you don't want skype root the phone and get rid of it.

 

[w40d1n1]

> Droid give us freedoms that Apple doesn't.

MysticalDreams, you are missing my point. This issue isn't about Droid freedoms, nor Vendor restrictions, but rather about commercial Vendor forcing commercial "always on" software to run on the phone. Imagine if every Dell PC shipped with AT&T software that you could not disable from running.

Droid is not the problem here, just like iOS isn't the problem elsewhere. Verizon is the problem here, just like Apple is the problem over there.

-Jim P.

 

[KevinJ]

SO the original poster stated that some apps keep being "alive" all on their own.

My question is why would the Amazon MP3 app start downloading stuff without me doing anything. 4 or 5 times I've noticed (when I check what's running) that the Amazon MP3 app is actively downloading something. But nothing ever shows up.

I have never used the app at all. It does this all by itself.