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Killing apps is a good thing. There have been battery saver programs since the very beginning of early Android versions to kill of connectivity and clean up run

by yason 8y ago

Killing apps is a good thing. There have been battery saver programs since the very beginning of early Android versions to kill of connectivity and clean up running apps. When Android now supports some of that natively and vendors too, even more aggressively, this is just responding to users' needs. There is a quite clear usage pattern to support this behaviour: unless I explicitly say so, I don't want apps on their own to "do stuff" no more than I want my Ubuntu to "do stuff" while I'm doing something else. I only want the application to respond when I'm viewing it. On Ubuntu, I always disable stuff like evolution server and automatic indexing after a fresh installation. At least you can do that on Ubuntu, that isn't necessarily always possible on locked-down systems. I'm happy that Android is quite usable these days because of Doze and background task killing.

gambiting 8y ago
I mean sure, but at least give me a way to override it. On my OnePlus 5T running Android Pie, the system will keep killing my VPN client when in sleep mode, even though I have selected that I don't want to optimize it under battery usage. With the VPN client restricting all unprotected access, it means that once the phone goes into sleep, I stop getting all notifications for anything because there is no internet connection. It's very frustrating.
- kda26 8y ago
  On my phone, if I go to the apps list>tap app I want to run in the background (VPN app for example)>battery>allow background usage. I have a galaxy S9 but there should be the same or similar setting on yours.
  - pedrocx486 8y ago
    It's exactly the same thing he's talking about. The issue here (I also own a OnePlus 5T) is that OnePlus' implementation of memory saving is too agressive and often ignores user configs.
- Abishek_Muthian 8y ago
  Try selecting 'Lock' for the VPN App from the recent apps section (top right)[1] [1]:https://imgur.com/Bk8jXbJ https://imgur.com/Bk8jXbJ
  - gambiting 8y ago
    Hmmm, I had no idea this was a thing. Will give it a try!
- UnFleshedOne 8y ago
  I use NetGuard on 5T, which is using VPN API, and that seems to stay alive. That with battery optimization off for it and with its own watchdog option enabled. I think I had it dying without watchdog though.
giancarlostoro 8y ago
LG even lets you pin apps you don't want auto-killed which is useful but I rarely use it since I kill them manually before it gets to do it for me, I didn't realize this was an issue on other phones. I guess that's why LG is technically not on this list? I've always thought it was a stock Android feature.
Wintamute 8y ago
Auto-killing apps to save battery is obviously good - nobody is contesting that. The bad thing that is being highlighted here is that there's no user friendly way for app developers to request additional privileges from the user.
- disiplus 8y ago
  we would end in the same place where we are now, apps would nag and require that we put them on the whitelist, I have a huawei mate 20 pro, the biggest reason thah I like this phone is the battery life. it has a huge battery and with agresive management I can go with 50% from morning till evening. there are only couple of apps in my whitelist. everything else its free to manage for me automatically. before that on my nexus device I got annoying notifications from my smart watch watchface app, that was using notifications for promotions and such.
- ecocentrik 8y ago
  If you're looking for user friendly ways to request privileges, that solution should really be offered by core android in a way that works for manufacturers and users and probably won't appease all developers. App permissions systems have been a nightmare for users from the start so you can't expect users to learn a newly revamped permissions system. They'll just continue to ignore permissions on install and complained when their phones aren't working the way they expected. What's evolving out of the manufacturers is a simplified system that requires explicit permissions from the user after installation to enable problematic privileges and active governance to manage battery/data hogs.
  - BoorishBears 8y ago
    What? The system you’re saying “evolved out of the manufacturers”, runtime permission requests, is from “core Android” all they way back at 6.0 And the problem has almost never been users blindly revoking permissions, it’s blindly granting permissions. The problem the parent comment mention isn’t the method of asking for permission, it’s the fact there literally is not a permission. And Android already has built in “active” battery management with Doze, if anything manufacturers are ruining it with poorly coded “optimizers” that do dumb things like kill their own alarm apps... And even if Android did add a permission to allow an app to do whatever it wants in the background and kill the battery as much as it wants, manufacturers can’t be bothered to write optimizers that don’t kill a music playing app while the user listens to music, why would they bother respecting a permission they didn’t make?
me551ah 8y ago
Killing background tasks is great and Android does that automatically to save battery usage. But these manufacturers have implemented their own functionality on top of Android which cripples even critical messaging applications like WhatsApp, Slack, Gmail by not delivering Instant Messages notifications instantly.
- eyko 8y ago
  I have a OnePlus 6 and none of the apps you've just mentioned fail to receive notifications when my phone is asleep.
  - me551ah 8y ago
    It does happen on oneplus devices and it's quite common to find complaints on oneplus forums like : https://bit.ly/2VSkhty https://bit.ly/2VSkhty . In all cases it is solved by adding these apps to the whitelist. If you aren't facing issues then these apps are probably already a part of the whitelist on your device.
- Yizahi 8y ago
  Just as an example, only chat/messenger apps on my Oneplus with saver enabled (default): - Skype - always killed - Slack - always killed - Whatsapp - sometimes killed, rarely - Telegram - never killed - FB Messenger - never killed All these are fully featured apps with tons of different functionality. Telegram and FBM never ever trigger "this app is draining your battery" while Skype triggers it regularly when I sometimes start it on phone. I'm going to generalize and say that probably some apps are simple bad and need to be fixed instead of granting them exceptions and allowing to be battery hogs.
  - izacus 8y ago
    Those apps are explicitly whitelisted by OnePlus. There's nothing to "fix" they're by the app developer, because the killing algorithm chooses based on app name, not app battery consumption. Facebook can kill your whole battery and you'll never get a warning.
BoorishBears 8y ago
It is not a good thing to kill an alarm app then purposely ignore its registered alarms, or killing a media player the user wants to listen to in the background. You using Ubuntu so you’re fine with wasting time setting up stuff that’s just supposed to work, but most users are not Case in point: https://androidcentral.com/blocking-huawei-phones-downloading-vlc-through-play-store-craziest-thing-happen-week https://androidcentral.com/blocking-huawei-phones-downloadin...
arendtio 8y ago
Actually, I think it depends on the use-case. I mean, there are some use-cases which are inherently battery intensive. Like accurate position tracking or receiving real-time messages. I think the problem is, that many users do not know which apps require more energy due to the specific problem they solve and which apps are just badly engineered. So to let the user decide every case is a bad option (+ decision fatigue). Letting the developers decide is even worse, as they would simply say, that their app requires as much energy as they need. So the vendor thinks he has to make that decision (as they don't want their phone to being perceived as having a bad battery life), who neither knows anything about the specific app nor about the use-case (probably the worst option). I think the system should simply report battery offenders (above the threshold of a well-engineered instant messaging app for example) to the user in a manner of 'App X used Y% of your battery in the last 24 hours. By limiting the battery usage, the app might not function as it is supposed to be. Do you want to limit the battery usage of this app?' That way, most developers would have a chance to build good apps which do not get reported and users would stay in control.
- marcodave 8y ago
  > in a manner of 'App X used Y% of your battery in the last 24 hours. I am pretty sure that my stock Android 8 is doing that already
mcv 8y ago
Killing apps that the user isn't using or relying on is a good thing. Randomly killing apps running in the background is a bad thing. This sounds like it should be an app permission: is this app allowed to run in the background or not?
masklinn 8y ago
Did you even bother reading the complaints? These "background killers" kill background applications the user wants to run and has specifically asked for e.g. alarms, health/fitness trackers, …, usually in the most harmful way possible (e.g. straight kill -9) meaning the application can't even tell the user what the issue is, and with complex steps users have to take (possibly repeatedly) to whitelist specific applications. Hell there are comments in this thread testifying that these built-in "battery savers" even kill the built-in alarm application.
- PunchTornado 8y ago
  been using android since forever. Now I'm on a s8+. I never had a case like this. maybe I didn't noticed it. But my alarm always went on like it should. my music always played. is this a bug that sometimes happens? how rare is it?
  - shittyadmin 8y ago
    Seems it's mainly an issue with Nokia devices, the other manufacturers were minor problems in comparisons.
  - Piskvorrr 8y ago
    S8 has this, but can be opted out (plus it has what I assume is a whitelist of pre-approved apps, but even those can be opted in, IIRC). It's clumsy, but sort-of works. It does break some old apps that rely on scheduled wakeups, though :(
    - AstralStorm 8y ago
      Also the Samsung variant will not kill the app or service that is showing a notification as it should. So the three problem is limited to apps relying on dumb running in background. Alarm scheduled wakeups get rounded to a minute in power saving mode though.

by yason 8y ago

gambiting 8y ago

I mean sure, but at least give me a way to override it. On my OnePlus 5T running Android Pie, the system will keep killing my VPN client when in sleep mode, even though I have selected that I don't want to optimize it under battery usage. With the VPN client restricting all unprotected access, it means that once the phone goes into sleep, I stop getting all notifications for anything because there is no internet connection. It's very frustrating.

kda26 8y ago
On my phone, if I go to the apps list>tap app I want to run in the background (VPN app for example)>battery>allow background usage. I have a galaxy S9 but there should be the same or similar setting on yours.
- pedrocx486 8y ago
  It's exactly the same thing he's talking about. The issue here (I also own a OnePlus 5T) is that OnePlus' implementation of memory saving is too agressive and often ignores user configs.
Abishek_Muthian 8y ago
Try selecting 'Lock' for the VPN App from the recent apps section (top right)[1] [1]:https://imgur.com/Bk8jXbJ https://imgur.com/Bk8jXbJ
- gambiting 8y ago
  Hmmm, I had no idea this was a thing. Will give it a try!
UnFleshedOne 8y ago
I use NetGuard on 5T, which is using VPN API, and that seems to stay alive. That with battery optimization off for it and with its own watchdog option enabled. I think I had it dying without watchdog though.

giancarlostoro 8y ago

LG even lets you pin apps you don't want auto-killed which is useful but I rarely use it since I kill them manually before it gets to do it for me, I didn't realize this was an issue on other phones. I guess that's why LG is technically not on this list? I've always thought it was a stock Android feature.

Wintamute 8y ago

Auto-killing apps to save battery is obviously good - nobody is contesting that. The bad thing that is being highlighted here is that there's no user friendly way for app developers to request additional privileges from the user.

disiplus 8y ago
we would end in the same place where we are now, apps would nag and require that we put them on the whitelist, I have a huawei mate 20 pro, the biggest reason thah I like this phone is the battery life. it has a huge battery and with agresive management I can go with 50% from morning till evening. there are only couple of apps in my whitelist. everything else its free to manage for me automatically. before that on my nexus device I got annoying notifications from my smart watch watchface app, that was using notifications for promotions and such.
ecocentrik 8y ago
If you're looking for user friendly ways to request privileges, that solution should really be offered by core android in a way that works for manufacturers and users and probably won't appease all developers. App permissions systems have been a nightmare for users from the start so you can't expect users to learn a newly revamped permissions system. They'll just continue to ignore permissions on install and complained when their phones aren't working the way they expected. What's evolving out of the manufacturers is a simplified system that requires explicit permissions from the user after installation to enable problematic privileges and active governance to manage battery/data hogs.
- BoorishBears 8y ago
  What? The system you’re saying “evolved out of the manufacturers”, runtime permission requests, is from “core Android” all they way back at 6.0 And the problem has almost never been users blindly revoking permissions, it’s blindly granting permissions. The problem the parent comment mention isn’t the method of asking for permission, it’s the fact there literally is not a permission. And Android already has built in “active” battery management with Doze, if anything manufacturers are ruining it with poorly coded “optimizers” that do dumb things like kill their own alarm apps... And even if Android did add a permission to allow an app to do whatever it wants in the background and kill the battery as much as it wants, manufacturers can’t be bothered to write optimizers that don’t kill a music playing app while the user listens to music, why would they bother respecting a permission they didn’t make?

me551ah 8y ago

Killing background tasks is great and Android does that automatically to save battery usage. But these manufacturers have implemented their own functionality on top of Android which cripples even critical messaging applications like WhatsApp, Slack, Gmail by not delivering Instant Messages notifications instantly.

eyko 8y ago
I have a OnePlus 6 and none of the apps you've just mentioned fail to receive notifications when my phone is asleep.
- me551ah 8y ago
  It does happen on oneplus devices and it's quite common to find complaints on oneplus forums like : https://bit.ly/2VSkhty https://bit.ly/2VSkhty . In all cases it is solved by adding these apps to the whitelist. If you aren't facing issues then these apps are probably already a part of the whitelist on your device.
Yizahi 8y ago
Just as an example, only chat/messenger apps on my Oneplus with saver enabled (default): - Skype - always killed - Slack - always killed - Whatsapp - sometimes killed, rarely - Telegram - never killed - FB Messenger - never killed All these are fully featured apps with tons of different functionality. Telegram and FBM never ever trigger "this app is draining your battery" while Skype triggers it regularly when I sometimes start it on phone. I'm going to generalize and say that probably some apps are simple bad and need to be fixed instead of granting them exceptions and allowing to be battery hogs.
- izacus 8y ago
  Those apps are explicitly whitelisted by OnePlus. There's nothing to "fix" they're by the app developer, because the killing algorithm chooses based on app name, not app battery consumption. Facebook can kill your whole battery and you'll never get a warning.

BoorishBears 8y ago

It is not a good thing to kill an alarm app then purposely ignore its registered alarms, or killing a media player the user wants to listen to in the background. You using Ubuntu so you’re fine with wasting time setting up stuff that’s just supposed to work, but most users are not Case in point: https://androidcentral.com/blocking-huawei-phones-downloading-vlc-through-play-store-craziest-thing-happen-week https://androidcentral.com/blocking-huawei-phones-downloadin...

arendtio 8y ago

Actually, I think it depends on the use-case. I mean, there are some use-cases which are inherently battery intensive. Like accurate position tracking or receiving real-time messages. I think the problem is, that many users do not know which apps require more energy due to the specific problem they solve and which apps are just badly engineered. So to let the user decide every case is a bad option (+ decision fatigue). Letting the developers decide is even worse, as they would simply say, that their app requires as much energy as they need. So the vendor thinks he has to make that decision (as they don't want their phone to being perceived as having a bad battery life), who neither knows anything about the specific app nor about the use-case (probably the worst option). I think the system should simply report battery offenders (above the threshold of a well-engineered instant messaging app for example) to the user in a manner of 'App X used Y% of your battery in the last 24 hours. By limiting the battery usage, the app might not function as it is supposed to be. Do you want to limit the battery usage of this app?' That way, most developers would have a chance to build good apps which do not get reported and users would stay in control.

marcodave 8y ago
> in a manner of 'App X used Y% of your battery in the last 24 hours. I am pretty sure that my stock Android 8 is doing that already

mcv 8y ago

Killing apps that the user isn't using or relying on is a good thing. Randomly killing apps running in the background is a bad thing. This sounds like it should be an app permission: is this app allowed to run in the background or not?

masklinn 8y ago

Did you even bother reading the complaints? These "background killers" kill background applications the user wants to run and has specifically asked for e.g. alarms, health/fitness trackers, …, usually in the most harmful way possible (e.g. straight kill -9) meaning the application can't even tell the user what the issue is, and with complex steps users have to take (possibly repeatedly) to whitelist specific applications. Hell there are comments in this thread testifying that these built-in "battery savers" even kill the built-in alarm application.

PunchTornado 8y ago
been using android since forever. Now I'm on a s8+. I never had a case like this. maybe I didn't noticed it. But my alarm always went on like it should. my music always played. is this a bug that sometimes happens? how rare is it?
- shittyadmin 8y ago
  Seems it's mainly an issue with Nokia devices, the other manufacturers were minor problems in comparisons.
- Piskvorrr 8y ago
  S8 has this, but can be opted out (plus it has what I assume is a whitelist of pre-approved apps, but even those can be opted in, IIRC). It's clumsy, but sort-of works. It does break some old apps that rely on scheduled wakeups, though :(
  - AstralStorm 8y ago
    Also the Samsung variant will not kill the app or service that is showing a notification as it should. So the three problem is limited to apps relying on dumb running in background. Alarm scheduled wakeups get rounded to a minute in power saving mode though.