how can you stop apps from auto-launching?

[Big Ry]

whenever i go to setting and look at running applications/processes, theres always a ton of apps that i havent used that are running. im not necessarily talking about stock apps either. for instance, cnet scan & shop and copilot always start them selves up without me using them. and i know some of these apps will restart a couple seconds after you kill them anyway. ive tried autostarts or whatever its called, but all it does is repeatedly kill the app wasting my battery. i dont want to remove these apps, but is there any way to make it so they only start if i open the app?

 

[CatsTide]

there's an app for that......auto start or something like that. free in the market

 

[Big Ry]

there's an app for that......auto start or something like that. free in the market

... ive tried autostarts or whatever its called...

it doesnt do what i want it to do...

 

[jsh1120]

whenever i go to setting and look at running applications/processes, theres always a ton of apps that i havent used that are running. im not necessarily talking about stock apps either. for instance, cnet scan & shop and copilot always start them selves up without me using them. and i know some of these apps will restart a couple seconds after you kill them anyway. ive tried autostarts or whatever its called, but all it does is repeatedly kill the app wasting my battery. i dont want to remove these apps, but is there any way to make it so they only start if i open the app?

The apps you mention are associated with the GPS and the exact dependencies are not necessarily clear, i.e. Does the app start because the GPS is enabled or does GPS turn on because the app starts. You may find some success in turning off your GPS and/or looking at the settings of the individual apps to see if you can prevent them from trying to run when the phone has a GPS signal.

I've seen the same behavior from "Shop Savvy" and have engaged in a running battle with the little b******d to stop making itself available to me when I'm sitting in my home where I don't have to buy anything.

On the other hand, as long as it's inactive it's mainly an aesthetic issue.

 

[Big Ry]

whenever i go to setting and look at running applications/processes, theres always a ton of apps that i havent used that are running. im not necessarily talking about stock apps either. for instance, cnet scan & shop and copilot always start them selves up without me using them. and i know some of these apps will restart a couple seconds after you kill them anyway. ive tried autostarts or whatever its called, but all it does is repeatedly kill the app wasting my battery. i dont want to remove these apps, but is there any way to make it so they only start if i open the app?

The apps you mention are associated with the GPS and the exact dependencies are not necessarily clear, i.e. Does the app start because the GPS is enabled or does GPS turn on because the app starts. You may find some success in turning off your GPS and/or looking at the settings of the individual apps to see if you can prevent them from trying to run when the phone has a GPS signal.

I've seen the same behavior from "Shop Savvy" and have engaged in a running battle with the little b******d to stop making itself available to me when I'm sitting in my home where I don't have to buy anything.

On the other hand, as long as it's inactive it's mainly an aesthetic issue.

that makes sense, but i wish there was still a way to stop them from starting. i dont want to turn my gps off becuse i use a weatherbug widget. but the cnet and copilot i virtually never use, so theres really no need for them to be running. i just dont want them using ram, be it a lot or a little.

 

[takeshi]

Can you confirm hat they're actually using memory while in the background? People seem to assume that background apps do but in most cases they don't in the Android world.

 

[jsh1120]

Can you confirm hat they're actually using memory while in the background? People seem to assume that background apps do but in most cases they don't in the Android world.

I've found the SystemPanel app to be especially useful for identifying "inactive" apps. Although the app is a "task killer," it's mainly useful for identifying what the O/S is doing.

You'll find, for example, that "inactive" apps are those that started at some point, used a few cpu cycles and then sat down quietly. You can kill them if you like. It will free some memory but any advantage you're likely to gain by doing so will be canceled by the cpu cycles the o/s uses to start them again.

 

[MKStroube]

Managing apps

I installed Advanced Task Killer. It seems to work well. You can de-select certain apps for it to inactivate so you can leave your weather or other apps running but not the others. When you touch the icon, they come on again. Easy, I think.

 

[Phreaker47]

I installed Advanced Task Killer. It seems to work well. You can de-select certain apps for it to inactivate so you can leave your weather or other apps running but not the others. When you touch the icon, they come on again. Easy, I think.

I use it as well. The guy just added the much-needed autokill feature to it, which I was about to move to another app for. I set mine to auto-kill whenever the phone sleeps (nice!) The catch is, before turning on autokill, you should build the ignore list for apps you want to allow to run all the time, then enable autokill. (I found that actually using the ignore list instead of just unchecking the items is much better.)

 

[Big Ry]

Can you confirm hat they're actually using memory while in the background? People seem to assume that background apps do but in most cases they don't in the Android world.

i think that needs to be reworded...

can you confirm that theyre actually NOT using memory while in the background?

ive heard it stated many times that the apps use virtually no memory, but that means nothing to me without proof. running processes/applications use ram on any computer/OS...windows, mac, blackberry OS, etc. that i know for a fact, but i have yet to see anyone provide any sort of evidence that android apps are infact dormant even though theyre open. thats not to say it isnt posted somewhere on this forum (i dont come here a whole lot), but ive seen that stated without proof many times.

 

[Big Ry]

I installed Advanced Task Killer. It seems to work well. You can de-select certain apps for it to inactivate so you can leave your weather or other apps running but not the others. When you touch the icon, they come on again. Easy, I think.

I use it as well. The guy just added the much-needed autokill feature to it, which I was about to move to another app for. I set mine to auto-kill whenever the phone sleeps (nice!) The catch is, before turning on autokill, you should build the ignore list for apps you want to allow to run all the time, then enable autokill. (I found that actually using the ignore list instead of just unchecking the items is much better.)

you do realize that many of the apps youre auto-killing will immediately start back up wasting your battery, right? thats the whole reason for this thread. i dont want them to keep starting up over and over.

 

[somethinghumble]

Cool thread here, droidies. Keep up the good posts.

I too find myself in need of some way to get rid of as much memory/cpu eating, unused apps as possible. I would like to be able to listen to music and play robo defense at the same time WITH NO LAGGING OR SKIPPING.

Three apps I never use and would love to be rid of permanently are Footprints, Peep and Stocks. How do I stop these apps from auto-launching or uninstall/delete these suckers? I think I'm shooting myself in the foot by using auto-kill apps on these renegade apps due to the cpu continuously reprocessing their start up sequences.

Also, I just use the default music player and sometimes it decides to go into a crazy super fast forward mode, and then my droid is always sluggish when I have to exit whatever app I'm using (sometimes it's just in lock mode). It takes it like 5+ seconds to accept the fact that I've pushed the pause button on the music widget. ARGG!

 

[bill d.]

Can you confirm hat they're actually using memory while in the background? People seem to assume that background apps do but in most cases they don't in the Android world.

yeah, yeah I can. My Eris used to get down to 25m of free memory when all I had opened was Handcent and the home screen (which was empty, save Weather Widget clock that wasn't on auto update). I kept my updates off, and my widgets to a minimum. Footprints, Voice Dialer, Peep, Google Talk, etc all open themselves in the background for whatever reason and bog down your system. Wish I understand why that happened. Don't have that problem on my Droid at all... Never gets laggy or weird, no matter how much I'm doing.

Cool thread here, droidies. Keep up the good posts.

I too find myself in need of some way to get rid of as much memory/cpu eating, unused apps as possible. I would like to be able to listen to music and play robo defense at the same time WITH NO LAGGING OR SKIPPING.

Three apps I never use and would love to be rid of permanently are Footprints, Peep and Stocks. How do I stop these apps from auto-launching or uninstall/delete these suckers? I think I'm shooting myself in the foot by using auto-kill apps on these renegade apps due to the cpu continuously reprocessing their start up sequences.

Also, I just use the default music player and sometimes it decides to go into a crazy super fast forward mode, and then my droid is always sluggish when I have to exit whatever app I'm using (sometimes it's just in lock mode). It takes it like 5+ seconds to accept the fact that I've pushed the pause button on the music widget. ARGG!

Root and uninstall said programs. haven't had to use a task killer once since I rooted my phone. and this is coming from someone who had to do it once an hour because of how bad the Eris was with opening programs on its own...

 

[somethinghumble]

thanks billy d. i was thinking about taking that rooting of the phone plunge but hadn't yet committed. i've already spent enough time phutzing with it already... or so i had thought. i'm definitely ready to not have to use an ineffective task killer every time i want to play a game. yeah.

 

[aminaked]

Apps sitting idle in ram use virtually no cpu/battery. Android automatically frees memory as needed so there's no problem with them sitting there. Autokill/manual kill use resources and are a waste of time.

Best bet is to avoid poorly designed apps that use cpu but don't get you anything. Example, I use a notepad app called Papyrus because it's the only simple one I could find that doesn't autostart. Try to cut down on widgets too. Antivirus and automated task killers are also a waste.

Automated task killers are like driving with one foot pressing the brake and one pressing the gas at the same time. Just let android do it's thing. Use an app's exit/quit button if it has one when you're done.