Does [Droid Optimizer] actually kill running apps? It shows you a
list and offers instant death to those you choose? I'll give it a
try.
Yep. You tap on the circle showing memory usage. A list of background
apps is listed (user and system). You tap on an icon for an app. Alas,
just an icon, so you have to know hieroglyphics to know for which app
the icon represents. Once you tap on an app icon, a panel shows up
giving more info. Use the X button to kill the app. Or, configure its
whitelist for apps you don't want killed, and use the app or its widget
to kill all the non-whitelisted apps.
Not all apps can be killed. For example, Droid Optimizer will not kill
itself which is obvious why not. Some apps are designated as "sticky":
they not only load when you start the OS, but they request the OS to
reload them should the OS notice they aren't running anymore. You kill
them, but the OS reloads them. That's why some task killing app users
complain that they cannot kill an app. It's privileged or its sticky.
In addition, there are services that will load apps.
When I had the Hangouts + Hangouts Dialer apps, I wanted the Hangouts
app whitelisted, so it wouldn't get killed when I use Droid Optimizer
1-touch kill button. Hangouts kept getting killed anyway. That's
because the ancilliary Hangouts Dialer app was not shown in the app list
to included in the whitelist - until I change to listing showing System
apps (instead of User apps), or listing All apps. Then I could see the
Hangouts Dialer app to add it and the Hangouts app to the whitelist, and
that kept Droid Optimizer from killing Hangouts with I used its widget
to do the 1-touch kill.
While they have a widget you can put on an Android screen, it works when
you tap on it, but it no longer refreshes to show the current memory
usage level. Supposedly it can be configured to refresh (to show the
current memory usage) at 1, 5, 15, 30, 45, and 60 minute intervals.
Nope, awhile ago it stopped refreshing to show the current memory usage
(which hinted to me when I might want to tap the widget to kill all the
non-whitelisted apps). It refreshes when I tap the widget to do the
cleanup, but I'd like to see the memory usage before I tap the widget.
Typically I'm never more than 30% consumption of my 4 GB of RAM.
It has some battery info, too, like charge level (and if discharging or
charging), battery temperature, battery voltage, and when was the last
charging session.
Another feature is cleaning the file system, like the junk/temp folder.
It can only clean out the public caches. Android's security bars one
app from clearing another app's private cache. It also has a startup
manager. It doesn't delete or disable a startup app, but it can kill
startup apps you don't want (stop on boot).
It has an app manager which will show more than the user-installed apps.
It will show the system and hidden apps that you won't see in Android's
settings -> Apps. You can list by type: All, User, System, Running,
Whitelisted, On SD-Card (apps you moved to the SD card), On internal
storage, and those that were Disabled or Frozen.
It has an automatic (scheduled) cleanup function. It can be schedule to
run at periodic intervals, or at specified times on specified days and
optionally only when the screen is switched off. Not scheduled at a
particular time, like when you sleep, but repeated at an interval you
specify. I have it configured for 1-hour intervals to flush background
apps while using its whitelist, but to clean the public caches or to
delete selected folders. However, I also have it deactivated since I'm
really not interested in this feature.
It has a privacy feature that looks at app permissions. One attribute I
like about this feature is picking an app shows me when it was installed
(and when it was last updated) - but I sure wish they'd pick a different
color than bright red on black, and why I cannot use its dark mode to
instead show as bright red on white. While it may list a lot of apps as
suspicious, it's still up to know which permissions an app really does
need. It will note Google's Messages app as having "Send SMS/MMS"
permission. Well, yeah, it's a messaging app, so it needs this
permission to do its job. You can tap the More Info button when viewing
an app's permissions to get a little more details on the permissions.
No idea why it often shows duplicates for the same permission, like
showing "Download without notification" for the Kindle app, so maybe
there are different categories of permissions under which each had a
download permission, or the app is getting confused reading permissions.
It shows the list of permissions by description, but also lists them by
Android permission attributes. Those show you tons more permissions
than you ever get prompted to allow, but you'll have to lookup the
android.permission.<attribute> permissions to understand what each is
for. It will also show all the services on which the app depends.
It is adware which I usually try to avoid; however, it doesn't show ads
by itself nor are there ad banners polluting it GUI. Only if you click
on "More apps" does it show more apps offered by this app's author
(Ashampoo), like Droid Commander, a file manager (I use Total Commander
which is less of a boob GUI design, or a more techy GUI).
I use it and then flick it away. If I call it up from its own icon I
get some full-screen Chinese crap, which goes away. I hardly ever need
to do that.
I was at a dentist checking my calender when making the next
appointment. That day was do the exam and schedule the work for a week,
or two, away. I wanted to look at my calendar, but the damn fullscreen
ad got in the way of me using my phone, and there was a problem getting
rid of the ad (at the time, I might've been new to this backgrounded app
shoving fullscreen ads in my face which obliterated the Android's
screens). Rather than have the receptionist sit there waiting for me to
figure out how to use my phone, I told her to go ahead to make an
appointement, and I'd call back later if there was a scheduling
conflict.