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Free Apps Eat Your Smartphone Battery

Posted by Soulskill on from the om-nom-nom dept.

judgecorp writes "Here's a reason to pay for smartphone apps: the free versions can spend three times as much energy finding and serving ads as they do serving their actual purpose. Research from a Purdue University scientist found that as much as 75 percent of the energy used by free apps (PDF) goes on accessing location services, finding suitable advertisements and displaying them."

12 of 214 comments (clear)

  1. Not always true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The custom firmware I use on my Android smartphone redirects all ad domains to 127.0.0.1, so no ads for me.

    1. Re:Not always true by courteaudotbiz · · Score: 4, Funny

      But if you use AdBlock Free, does it suck up your battery to display ads?

    2. Re:Not always true by JackieBrown · · Score: 4, Informative

      Adaway works for me.

      It's even open source. You need root, first, though.

      https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.adaway&hl=en

  2. Correction by Tyrannosaur · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ads Eat Your Smartphone Battery

    1. Re:Correction by QuasiSteve · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Ads Eat Your Smartphone Battery

      More specifically, bad ad serving code eats your smartphone battery.

      If your app connects to an ad server/framework every minute, or on particular events, etc. etc. each time... then yes, that's going to suck down energy real fast.

      Instead, download multiple ads (in the background), serve from that pool.

      Better yet, as somebody at a Dutch tech site suggested, let shared ad frameworks do this so that N ads downloaded can be shared across multiple apps.

      There are down sides, of course:
      - the ads in the pool may become outdated. I.e. if somebody searched for PNDs today, the ads downloaded yesterday won't be notifying you of the latest TomTom/Garmin/whatever offerings. This can be corrected by always refreshing after a set time.
      - you may end up downloading more ads than you'll actually use before such a refresh, which means you actually used more energy (and bandwidth) than you would have under traditional methods.

      But in general, all this opening/closing of connections which in turn may or may not lead to 3G / 4G modules kicking into action, etc. is just inefficient.

    2. Re:Correction by cpu6502 · · Score: 4, Funny

      In other news:

      Ads on television waste anywhere from 1/3rd to one-half the power used while watching TV. ;-) Back in the 1960/70s when ads were only 9 minutes per hour, TV ads only wasted 15% power.

      --
      My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
  3. free != ads by Kenja · · Score: 5, Informative

    There are free apps without ads and there are paid for apps with ads. Title should be that ads eat up battery life, which is kind of a no brainer.

    --

    "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
  4. Re:Ads? What are they? by artor3 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Since you obviously read Slashdot, I'd say you see at least a couple every day. They're just disguised as stories.

  5. JuiceDefender by TheSpoom · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I rarely shill for a product but if you have an Android phone with a less-than-optimal battery (like me), JuiceDefender does wonders. It turns off your phone's wi-fi and data connections (except for situations you configure like a streaming radio app is open) when your screen is off, turning them back on every X minutes so apps like email an sync on a reasonable schedule while not killing your battery. This by itself can save a huge amount of battery life (though it can do a lot more).

    By its own calculations (which I of course take with a grain of salt) it has more than doubled my effective battery life, and I would guess from practical use that it's nearly correct.

    --
    It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
    - E. Debs
  6. Re:Free? by Noughmad · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Of course, just like writing Slashdot posts on a "free" operating system with a "free" desktop environment and a "free" browser is just drowning me in ads.

    --
    PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
  7. Re:Not a problem by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 5, Funny

    You can get angry birds easily on any platform.

    1) Place phone on birdfeeder.
    2) Fill birdfeeder with catfood.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  8. Misleading article is misleading by flibuste · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As a developer of entirely free Android applications (free as in "beer" and in "free of ads"), I take offense at the overgeneralization of the article to "Free Applications". If you are not a careful reader, this may lead you to think that ALL free apps are full of ads AND power eaters.
    A lot of "free" apps don't have ads and don't use more power than any other app. Many behave actually way better than paid ones.
    Stupid article is stupid.