Re: has useful functionality that it helps quickly (1) kill some running apps
This is evil.
It's kludgy, but given a choice: (a) to be able to run quickly the app I need
at the moment or (b) to wait while the phone is sluggish, and maybe, at some point, the memory manager will take care of it, I am choosing the former.
Re: (2) clean up the cache quickly
The caches are trimmed by Android automagically if storage gets low. And there is a way for the user to do that too, without additional apps.
I must have a kryptonite on my phone, as that automagic fails frequently. If each time over the past two years, when I had the system warning "storage is low, some functions might not be working", my 1 cent on the desk would have doubled, I would be the richest person on Earth today!
On each of those occasions, I delete some 30-100 MB of cache (and that's excluding the cache of those apps that it should not touch, such as Aquamail and others that would be unreasonable for me to delete).
As for the "way for the user to do that too, without additional apps.", - I am aware of two:
1. System -> Apps -> delete cache manually.
2. Android Voodoo-ish way of cleaning the cache partition by pressing these and those buttons simultaneously in a magic sequence, - and rebooting the phone twice in the mean time.
The first one is no different from what Clean Master (CM) is doing, albeit you have to do that individually for each app, whereas CM allows reviewing all of those caches quickly on one screen and cleaning them at once.
What's wrong with that? Just because some
Guru said it's wrong? And because
"real men" should do it manually, through the teeth and suffering...
Besides, apps leave behind other cache-like temporary files, like thumbnails. Those indeed speedup the apps if you are looking at the same images regularly. But if you look at some folder with images once in a month(s), there is no reason to keep numerous thumbnails. And I am
not aware of
anything in Android (4.x) that would be cleaning those thumbnails (and some other temporary files).
Actually, the situation is very similar to what happens in Windows: you can accumulate GBs of temporary files in the "TMP" folder in Windows that would never be deleted, unless you do it manually.
I remember WinXP was offering cleaning that when you have just a few MB remaining on the HDD. But I am not sure that Win 7 has that anymore (or maybe I disabled that, as I do that manually preemptively anyway).
If there is an app specifically built to "stop running apps" -- then, surprise, a "running app" (AquaMail) will "stop running" just as intended.
As everything, all useful things should be used in moderation and judiciously. That's why I mentioned that this app allows configuring (and remembers those configurations) which apps can be stopped, and separately, - which apps' cache or thumbnails can be cleaned.
Otherwise, - it is similar to using a missile as a baseball bat.
And for the record, - no, CM is far from ideal, and can be dangerous if thinking is not used. But "it is better than nothing" (or the alternatives).
But we digressed.
I agree.
I find this app useful. And I have metrics that prove that.
You prefer to follow the gospel preached by a evangelist in this issue. I am sincerely surprised, as I see that you base your conclusions on the evidence outside of this question.
But having provided the compelling evidence, I see further attempts of trying to challenge your faith are pointless. And I also don't want to waste your time.
Let's spend our time and energy on something constructive. (like Aquamail
)
