Advanced Task Killer

by Antonio Wells Aug 28, 2009 5:00 AM – 83 Comments

Install

Advanced Task Killer. One click to kill applications running background. This one is faster than free version. Features: click to select or unselect the app, long press to activate pop-up menu, Menu>Settings>Notification bar icon, AutoStart Ignore.

Price: Free, $4.99

Update: In our opinion, this app maybe near extinction as phones with Android 2.2 or higher do a great got of managing memory and tasks themselves. The use of these types of apps on Android 2.2+ devices are actually counter-productive, so consider wisely.

AndroidTapp.com Android App Review:

Features:

Advanced Task Killer Android App allows you to stop running background processes or apps in memory. The Android operating system can run multiple apps in memory concurrently which currently is its own Gift and Curse. Cursed… as some processes and apps can bring an Android phone performance to a crawl. By default, you can’t easily close open applications or running background processes unless you go to:

Settings » Applications » Manage applications » (wait for list to load…) » (select app) » Force Stop ;-(

Not exactly convenient then…

The alternative is to download Advanced Task Killer from the market and use that instead. The name says “Advanced” task killer but it does everything TasKiller does; stops background processes and apps, specify an “Ignore List”, or kill all apps running with one button (at a higher cost without a home screen widget).

: Advanced Task Killer List of Apps and Processes

: Advanced Task Killer Long Press Menu Actions

: Advanced Task Killer Settings Menu

: Advanced Task Killer Ignore List

Usefulness:

This app is very useful, I would even recommend for new users who have no clue why their Android phone may be sluggish.

Ease of Use:

Advanced Task Killer Android App is simple and intuitive.

Frequently Used:

Could potentially be used multiple times daily or sparingly as needed.

Interface:

The user interface is simple yet intuitive.

AndroidTapp.com Rating

(4.0 out of 5)

Should you Download Advanced Task Killer? Update: for Android 2.1 and lower… Yes! Definitely Worth Downloading!

Developer: ReChild

Tags: Advanced Task Killer, Android Apps, Android Task Management, AndroidTapp.com App Review, Close Android Applications, Conserve Android Memory

Categorised in: Productivity, Tools

83 Comments

By tonesenna on November 11, 2009 at 6:18 pm:

TK is a “killer” app, no pun intended.
It does its job perfectly except for one minor issue. Tasks are killed with one single tap, without confirmation. This can be bad because sometimes a user might tap the wrong app and when he notices it, it’s already too late.

To get a full 5 star rating I’d like to see a confirmation before killing the app and/or, a settings preference to turn it on or off.

Other than that, it’s a very convenient app.

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- By Marko on July 19, 2012 at 11:10 am:
  
  We have just released a brand new Android task manager: “BWP Task & App Manager”.
  Main features: memory/battery optimization, cleanup and auto kill, multiple apps uninstall. Sexy UI included.
  Give it a try — it’s really awesome.
  
  I post direct link to the app here if you don’t mind:
  http://bit.ly/BestTaskManager
  
  Reply
By Charles Wilson on November 20, 2009 at 12:05 pm:

I downloaded and use but notice each time I use their are apps in the list that I did not open. For instance I kill and immediately run again and there are 3-4 more open that did not get killed or were not their when I just killed seconds before. Any suggestions.

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- By Android Tapp on November 20, 2009 at 1:05 pm:
  
  Personally I unistall app like that, the persistant ones reinserting themselves in the background.
  
  Reply
  - By nick on April 12, 2010 at 4:50 pm:
    
    well… what if it is something you CANT uninstall… like the shit they give you on the backflip… bloatware… but you cant uninstall it..
    
    Reply
By van on November 28, 2009 at 7:35 pm:

Can someone explain to my why this app requires Location data (network granular)? Just seems fishy to me…

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- By Freddie on January 28, 2010 at 12:07 pm:
  
  I would like to know why it requires my information as well. Seems to me it’s not needed.
  
  Reply
- By Dennis on April 30, 2010 at 10:03 pm:
  
  Because the free version is ad based and tries to find ads that are in your area, therefore noetwork access and location data is needed.
  
  Reply
By stephanie on December 1, 2009 at 9:35 pm:

simple to use however once killed apps just come back within seconds. any suggestions?

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- By Android Tapp on December 2, 2009 at 8:25 am:
  
  I usually uninstall those apps. No app should need to persist so much unless absolutely needed.
  
  Reply
By Lady Di on December 19, 2009 at 7:54 pm:

I liked that it “kills” itself as well. I mean, well you know what I mean. I still have the free version for now and it works just fine… for now.

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By Max on January 7, 2010 at 8:37 am:

how do you download it??

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By goober on January 9, 2010 at 4:23 pm:

i like it but can’t get rid of it’s icon in the upper task bar. not the biggest deal in the world but would like to get rid of it.

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- By Lisa on February 9, 2010 at 10:46 am:
  
  Drag the android icon down, the kill selected apps will appear, click on the menu, click on settings,de-select “show notification”. The icon will be removed.
  
  Reply
  - By kim on February 22, 2011 at 8:23 pm:
    
    thank you it worked
    
    Reply
- By ferjen69 on October 5, 2010 at 12:27 pm:
  
  Open settings > uncheck Show Notification. Done.
  
  Reply
By Rob on January 25, 2010 at 10:43 am:

So I have Ad. Task Killer…

Say I have tcallblocking lite … until now, it has never opened in A.T.K…. because I didn’t expect the single number I have in the tcall blocking lite to call me… EVER.

And I go in to kill a few apps using ATK… and there it is. the tcallblocking lite didn’t update… and I haven’t touched it in weeks since I bought the phone….

…could it just ‘open up’ by itself in the ATK menu??? Thanks!!!!!!!

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By Roffe on March 2, 2010 at 2:57 am:

Just remember if you set the Alarm and then kill the running alarm app, you will deactivate it. I have set the alarm application on my ignore list.

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By avwebnet on March 24, 2010 at 3:44 pm:

In the last couple of weeks (haven’t installed any new apps lately) everytime I use use ATK, then click HOME, the HTC reloads itself. Should I reinstall it?

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By noname on March 29, 2010 at 11:36 am:

Why does everyone fail to realize this app is useless… otherwise known as snake oil! Do your research and learn know the android system handles application states and memory management. Having “xxMB free memory” doesn’t make your phone faster, its just how much memory is available for another process to run (at the same time)… but the android os will always manage memory properly so each app or process your running will have the memory it needs. Your phone won’t slow down.

Same goes for those anti virus apps… hahahahahahahahah

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- By avwebnet on March 29, 2010 at 4:09 pm:
  
  Slowing down is not the issue. Its causes my Droid to reload when I hit HOME. I thought the purpose was to conserve my battery, not free up memory. My brand new phone has been sitting on my desk, no calls or messages, and the battery is already 30% gone.
  
  Reply
- By eric on July 21, 2010 at 11:22 pm:
  
  listen to this guy. this app is completly useless and does more harm than good on an adroid OS, which is designed to self maintain. this app destropyed my battery life and froze my system on multiple occasion.
  
  same with antivirus free.
  
  complete wastes of time.
  
  Reply
  - By PhonePhella on December 29, 2010 at 1:11 pm:
    
    I agree. I troubleshoot Droid phones all day, and have noticed that the Advanced Task Killer seems to cause firmware instability on Android platforms after the 2.1 release. Froyo has a decent native battery manager and application manager. There may be a better app out there–but Advanced Task Killer is definitely not it.
    
    Reply
- By techguy on October 3, 2010 at 8:17 am:
  
  It may or may not make your phone run faster based on the amount of free memory your phone has left, but the main benefit ATK is to kill those apps that use up all of your battery.
  
  Reply
- By jmanning on December 19, 2010 at 9:47 am:
  
  this is true…but it really helps on battery life
  
  Reply
  - By Jason Norment on December 19, 2010 at 10:48 pm:
    
    I disagree. If you are constantly killing a task or using a program like ATK to constantly kill a program, you should probably change the app settings of the program your forcing to stop or uninstall it. Plain and simple.
    
    Reply
By Patrick on April 1, 2010 at 11:44 am:

I am having a problem with my Task killer. I will go to it, kill the selected apps that I want and then return an hour or so later to see the apps re-opened….ie voice dialer or some other programs that were installed on my phone when I got it. I am trying to pro-long my battery life to make it at least a full day with out recharging……any ideas?

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By Bob McCormick on April 13, 2010 at 8:23 pm:

All Android task killers are a complete waste of time. Read this: http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/
Or you could read up a bit on the Android process lifecycle: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/fundamentals.html#proclife

The TL;DR version – Android activities are stopped whenever they aren’t visible. The only things that do run in the background are service processes. These are registered by applications that need to do things either in the background or in response to alarms or events. (such as playing music in the background, checking for updates in the background, etc).

Task killers are a waste of time, a waste of money, and basically a rip-off.

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By David on May 10, 2010 at 7:00 am:

Substantially extends battery life for HTC Incredible. Slows the Incredible’s fluid motion a little, but worth it.

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By Gerry Massie on May 20, 2010 at 8:43 am:

Hello,

Great APP!! Running it on a Samsung Moment (Sprint) 1.5 for a while, and just upgraded the Moment to 2.1. I am not sure if I registered it with you before, so if you can please check, I would appreciate it. Your hard work deserves to be recognized!! Let me know what you need from me to check on registration.

Thanks!!

Gerry Massie-
Norfolk, VA

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- By Android Tapp on May 20, 2010 at 9:44 am:
  
  Few clarifications. We are not the developers of this fine app yet we reviewed the app. Also there is no registration for the app however you can visit the developers website http://rechild.mobi/ to get his email to thank him or by purchasing the Pro version helps!
  
  We also removed your personal info from the comment as the spam bots would pick that up quick… don’t want to barrage of West Nigerian “Confidential Business Proposal for $47 Million” or Chinese “You’ve Won $10 Million” emails right.
  
  Reply
By nico33 on June 6, 2010 at 10:49 am:

It killed sms and email’s notifications. I don’t understand ignore’s procedure.

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By Jim on June 24, 2010 at 4:25 pm:

What do the different auto kill level setting represent and what do the different security level settings represent. It’s not intuitive from the app. I can guess what the security level is but am perplexed at what the settings of safe, aggressive and crazy represent for kill level.

Thanks.

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By Tom on June 28, 2010 at 2:50 pm:

what do u actually do does it delete the apps off your list i dnt understand it

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- By Antonio Wells on June 28, 2010 at 3:01 pm:
  
  It does not delete apps from your phone but stops apps from running in the background. Similar to closing a program on a computer.
  
  Reply
By Logan on August 3, 2010 at 11:31 pm:

I just updated my SE Xperia X10 and when I used this app it killed my OS and now my phone is shot. I can’t find any information about this and any help would be greatly appreciated!

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By Jo on August 30, 2010 at 8:57 am:

If I select this program to “kill” does this mean the selected app is gone or will it still be there till I want to use it again?

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- By Antonio Wells on August 30, 2010 at 9:07 am:
  
  It will “kill” or stop the background process. When you launch the app again, it will resume its background processing.
  
  Reply
By Ankeet on September 13, 2010 at 9:28 am:

Must have for all android phones. My battery life has gone double…

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By Eric on September 13, 2010 at 3:53 pm:

ATK sucked my battery and caused me to drop calls after about 1 minute. Uninstalled and now back to normal. Droid X

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- By pop98 on December 7, 2010 at 10:46 am:
  
  Ok now I’m confused. I have the Droid 2 and the kill app came with it and it is turned on. I have not used it yet due to I didn’t know what it was for. I just got the phone. So…..do I turn it off or leave it on to extend my battery life?
  
  Reply
  - By Jason Norment on December 7, 2010 at 12:01 pm:
    
    Remove it! For any Android device using Froyo (2.2) or above, task killers do more harm than good. The device does it’s own memory and task management well enough on it’s own.
    
    Reply
By Michael on October 17, 2010 at 2:53 pm:

Can someone tell me how to install the one click and it kills all apps. Currently, I have to click on task killer app. then kill selected apps.

Thanks

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- By Roland on December 20, 2010 at 1:10 pm:
  
  Add ATK as a widget (instead of the app) and it will be a one-click killer.
  
  Reply
By palmer91 on October 19, 2010 at 5:42 pm:

mine disables email notifications, even after i uninstall it, it wont comeback

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By DroidLearner on December 25, 2010 at 5:36 pm:

Ringtones and songs that I downloaded was working but now I have Green Task killer Monster next to my songs and ringtones and those ae unabe to use/listen to. Can you tell me why???

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- By Jason Norment on December 26, 2010 at 1:48 pm:
  
  Best bet would be to uninstall the app or submit an issue ticket with the developer. Also, check to see what apps the program is set to “auto-kill” if it has that function. It might be automatically closing necessary OS operations which is the issue with using 3rd party task killers anyway.
  
  Reply
By No so Useless on January 27, 2011 at 12:48 pm:

I see a lot of people talking about this free”snake oil” app. I recommend you take your phone overseas and see how much data you get charged for… This app will shut down those bandwidth hungry apps that run your data usage charges into the $$$$$$$ range while you sleep. There is still a purpose…

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By Ooi on January 30, 2011 at 7:37 pm:

I installed ATK, ignored my clock and calendar, but my alarms stopped working. what did I do wrong?
How can i set alarm application on my ignore list?
Can somebody help? Thanks a lot

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By lucian on February 1, 2011 at 4:46 pm:

hi guys i have a HTC desire 3g , all so i download the addvancer task killer and i don’t like it very much , the problem its when i push the kill apps the application will kill but not for a moment ,in a few second the aplication run in background,i don’t know what program its good to use to kill complete the aplication…..

some help please? i appreciate

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By Wolfster on April 9, 2011 at 10:28 pm:

I set this to “crazy kill mode” and now I can use my Samsung Intercept without it being a pain in the ass. I really recommend this. Once I get VM OTA 2.2 installed I hopefully won’t need it.

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By chaspdx on April 18, 2011 at 8:44 am:

All the task killers seem to be the same. kill a task wait 30 minutes and presto open the task killer and there are like 20 apps running all of which are ones I havent used . Yahoo messenger, mail, note pad the list goes on . I even had mine set to kill when screen is black or off that feature didnt even kill anything .
To be honest Im not all that happy with my HTC the battery bites . I bet I could get more power from plugging it into my ass.

I got this phone because my iphone 4 loved to drop calls well so does the HTC.

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By Karl on May 20, 2011 at 5:00 pm:

I cant get this to work, I kill a couple of apps but after 5-10min without me touching the phone the apps are back again.

And I havnt even used some of the apps :/

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By Mark on June 1, 2011 at 9:38 am:

I have a samsung prevail and every time I use ATK it makes my phone lag to the extreme, to the point to make my phone usable, I have to take out the battery and reset it. Can anyone help?

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By Blaze on November 30, 2011 at 8:47 am:

an expert told me that the advanced task killer will cut my airtime costs considerably while someone else says it will not, can anyone confirm this one way or another?

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By cdpdee on December 20, 2011 at 10:11 am:

I realize I am late to the party, but also have problems with seeing all kinds of apps that need to be killed that (to my knowledge), I never opened- all the time!!! These apps do not appear opened on my factory installed task manager, just on ATK- ALL THE TIME!!!
My battery life was marginal before installation, but has BOTTOMED OUT after installing this app, not able to keep a charge for a full day now! I am not happy with this app, and am seriously considering removing…

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By Denise on July 26, 2012 at 11:58 am:

I downloaded the app. I can’t remember what to go into to have the little green dude on the screen and you just touch him and it’s kills them. I don’t want to have to go into the app each time I want to delete them.

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By Joe Lebus on October 25, 2012 at 2:26 pm:

This Task killers shouldn’t be used:

http://haxordoubt.blogspot.com/2012/10/why-you-shouldnt-use-task-killer-on.html

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