Link Safe

If your Android device feels a bit sluggish at times, try these five free apps and one tweak to give it more zip. me explain how they work.

Greenify (Android 4.0 or later ) http://bit.ly/Greemify Android keeps previously opened apps running in the background so you can switch to them quickly, but having too many open can slow down your device. Greenify helps by ‘hibernating’ apps when you’re not using them, temporarily stopping them working. After selecting which apps to hibernate, create a Hibernate Now shortcut on your Home screen and tap it to hibernate your selected apps. When you switch back to the app it comes out of hibernation. Be warned that ‘Greenifying’ alarm clock and instant-messaging apps will

prevent them from sending you alerts.

Fast Reboot (Android 1.5 or later http://bit.ly/fastboott Fast Reboot stops and restarts Android processes, which are basically a series of ongoing instructions that tell your device what to do. For example, a ‘service process’ might play music or download data, while a ‘background process’ might be an alarm clock. Once opened, each Android app runs its own process and this only stops

when the device is rebooted. This means that even if you close the apps, the processes will continue to run in the background. Because each process uses RAM, this can slow down Android over time.

Watchdog Task Manager Lite (Android 1.5 or later) http://bit.ly/Task Manager Watchdog Task Manager Lite identifies apps that eat into your CPU’s resources, displaying stats about how long they’ve been open, how much memory they take up and what percentage of your CPU is being used. From this, decide which ones you want to stop running in the background until you next turn your

device on.

Lightning Launcher Home (Android 2.0 or later) http://bit.ly/LightningLauncher Your Android homescreen is, in effect, an app launcher - an app that launches other apps. If you’re not keen on Android’s default app launcher, try the excellent Lightning Launcher Home,which lets you place items anywhere on your homescreen, not just at the sides. Once you get your homescreen as you want it, you’ll be able to use your device more quickly.

Cache Clear (Android 1.6 or later) http://bit.ly/CacheClear Cache Clear lets you erase data relating to

apps that’s stored in your phone’s memory. This can include old call logs, saved texts and instant messages, search results and data stored on the Android clipboard. Tap ‘Clear all’ to manually clear the cache or, to keep things running smoothly, set it to clear at regular interval.