Fast Android? We all want fast devices. So there are a lot of tips circulating right now on how to speed up an Android device. Unfortunately, not everything written works.
Below we will see how you can make your phone faster, but also what you should avoid.
How to speed up Android: Basic tips
Android's default apps and settings aren't always the best for speed. By making a few simple changes, you can speed up your phone's performance.
Clean up your home screen
If your phone has a slow processor or low RAM, a clean home screen can go a long way in speeding up your device. Animated wallpapers and widgets use up your system resources.
Use a different launcher
The default launcher on your phone is usually designed to bring out the best in your device. So it may not be the fastest.
There are tons of launchers on the Play Store, and many of them are optimized for speed. It's worth experimenting with a few to find the one that works best for your device.
Change your browser
The default web browser on Android, Chrome, is a very complicated app. There are a few ways you can improve it, but the best solution is to switch to a completely different browser.
Some benchmark tests have shown that Puffin is the fastest browser for Android. If you prefer something similar to Chrome, take a look at Opera. The data compression feature can help pages load very quickly.
Uninstall “bad” apps
Some apps are hopelessly slowing down your device. Don’t think about malicious apps. Very often, they are applications beyond suspicion. Uninstalling Facebook, for example, could make your phone 15% faster. Try changing the official Facebook app to one from a third-party developer.
Remove antivirus software
Antivirus software claims to offer Android users security. But it essentially freezes your phone and drains your battery. As long as you only use apps from official sources, such as the Play Store or the Amazon Appstore, it is extremely unlikely that you will encounter malicious apps.
Stop automatic app syncing
Apps for social, news, and weather sync automatically. By default, they connect to the internet every 15 minutes. With a bunch of these apps on your phone, your device is constantly running in the background.
Check the sync schedules for all your apps and set syncs to every few hours or once a day. Or simply turn off syncing and update apps manually when you open them.
Install updates
Every new version of Android also brings performance improvements, so your device can be updated, don't delay. The same goes for apps. Enable automatic updates in the Play Store to make sure you have the latest versions of apps.
Reboot regularly
Finally, restarting your device can help Android's performance immensely. You don't have to do it every day, but occasional reboots will do wonders, especially if your phone is particularly slow or getting hotter than normal.
If you've tried all of the above and find that nothing has changed on your device, try a factory reset. Before doing so, you should back up your data.
How to Speed Up Android: Advanced
If you like to dig into hidden settings or have root access, you can speed up Android even more.
Speed up animations
Android is full of animations that make using your device fun. A hidden setting lets you control the speed of animations, which will improve the speed of your phone.
Use the path:
Settings – Developer (or Settings – System – Developer for Android Oreo and higher). Set Window animation scale, Transition animation scale, and Animator duration scale to .5x.
This cuts the speed of animations in half.
If you can’t see Developer options, you’ll need to enable them first, from Settings – System – About. Tap Build number 7 times to make the option appear.
Try a different ROM
A custom ROM is not a bad idea, many manufacturers load Android with a lot of extra apps and features, which is definitely something the end user pays attention to. Replacing the stock operating system with a ROM like LineageOS can give you more speed.
Use a Custom Kernel
The Kernel manages every interaction between your phone's software and hardware. Custom Kernels allow you to tweak how your hardware works. You can change how quickly your processor reaches its maximum speed, or how busy it needs to be before it activates additional cores.
Some Kernels also offer per-app settings, so you can get maximum power when playing a particular game and return to normal as soon as you stop playing.
Control background apps with Greenify
Task killers don't speed up your phone, as we'll see below. The Greenify app may sound like a task killer (preventing apps from running in the background), but it has a subtle difference.
Greenify runs at the system level, so it not only closes apps, but also prevents them from running until you need them again. This means it also stops automatic syncing.
The app is less useful from Android Oreo onwards due to improvements in how operating systems manage system resources. But on older devices, the Greenfiy app is one of the best reasons to root.
How to Speed Up Android: What Doesn't Work
In addition to all of the above that work, there are some common speed-boosting techniques that simply don't do what they promise.
Task killers
Task killers are some of the most popular utility apps on the Play Store, but they're completely useless. In fact, they'll slow down your phone.
A task killer closes apps running in the background to free up RAM. It works on the idea that freeing up RAM improves performance, but that's not true. Android is designed to keep apps in RAM so it can quickly bring them back up. The operating system will intelligently close some apps whenever it needs extra resources.
More importantly, some app processes will have to be restarted because they're no longer running in the background. This will slow down your phone much more than if you just let Android do its thing.
Closing Apps
For the same reason, you don't need to worry about closing apps. Again, Android handles this automatically. If Android needs more resources, it will close any apps you use less and are running in the background.
Speed Boosters or Defragmenters
While we’re trying to avoid generalizations, we can say that you should avoid any app that promises to improve your phone’s performance without root. What are these apps? RAM boosters, SD card speed-uppers, and anything else with a boost that you can find in the Play Store.
They rarely work, and very often contain very annoying ads that slow down the phone even more.
Also, don’t use defragmenter apps. Your phone doesn’t need defragmentation as it uses flash memory that is not affected by fragmentation. All the defraggers on Google Play will not make your phone run faster.
The last way to speed up Android is of course to upgrade to a new device.
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- Task Manager which applications consume the most energy?
- Is it necessary to root your Android phone in this day and age?
