Top 5 performance-killing apps you need to delete today

1. Apps that claim to save RAM

Apps running in the background eat up your RAM and use battery life, even if they're on standby. The idea behind apps that claim to boost your memory is to close these background apps systematically. Unfortunately, this exacerbates the problem.

• How much memory you need depends on how you use your smartphone

Apps running in the background have to restart after you close them. Memory and battery life is used to restart the apps, and this constant closing and restarting of apps can make your phone unstable. So, these memory saving apps don't make any sense. Furthermore, Android manages RAM usage automatically and knows when to run an app or not, so third-party apps aren't necessary.

2. Clean Master (or any cleaning app)

Cleaning apps promise to clean up your phone to boost performance. While it's true that deleted applications sometimes leave behind some cached data, it's not necessary to download a dedicated cleaner. Just go to Settings > Storage > and tap Cached data. At the Clear cached data prompt, hit OK.

Alternatively, you can clear the cache of individual apps by going to Settings > Apps > Downloaded and tapping on an app. On the next page, tap Clear Cache. 

Clean Master and similar apps often require a lot of battery power, and their in-app advertising has the potential to take a chunk out of your monthly data allowance. Remove such apps at your earliest convenience. 

3. Facebook

Facebook is in trouble. Following the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Mark Zuckerberg's company may be experiencing its first real crisis. This adds to other problems encountered by the social network in recent years. It seems like the time is right to remove the application from your smartphone.

Uninstalling Facebook will speed up your smartphone, and improve your device's performance no matter how powerful it is, but this is no secret. The Facebook app for Android has become monstrous in recent years: high memory consumption, staying active in the background, demanding permissions, and worst of all, hungrily consuming of mobile data. 

If you really want to continue using Facebook, you can use the mobile site and add a shortcut on the home screen. Thus, when you close the web tab of Facebook, the site will no longer use the resources of your phone (battery, data plan etc.).

• Concerned Cambridge Analytica stole your data? Here's how you can check

4. Difficult to delete manufacturer bloatware 

Many smartphones have a lot of apps pre-installed. Whether it's apps for hotel booking, games, or functionally questionable office apps: many manufacturers install their own useless apps alongside the compulsory set of apps from Google. Ideally, it's just storage space wasted, but in the worst case, they take up battery life, screen real estate and can't even be uninstalled.

It is, therefore, worthwhile to look through your app list and delete the pre-installed apps. The easiest way to do this is by grabbing the respective app in the app drawer and then pulling it onto the app info icon. Then you will see if the app is uninstallable or only deactivatable. The latter option simply means the app is no longer launched upon restart and disappears from the app drawer, but it continues to occupy space anyway - these deactivated apps can only be completely removed after rooting your phone.

Some vendors won't let you uninstall Facebook, Twitter, or other social networks on your smartphone. This is annoying for users who don't care about social media, or those who don't need the app taking up space on their device. After all, in many cases, the mobile site is sufficient enough.

One remedy is to buy smartphones from manufacturers which allow the uninstallation of bloatware - for example, Huawei and Honor. Or buy smartphones which only come with a few third-party apps, like Google or Lenovo.

5. Battery savers

Similar to RAM boosters, battery-saving apps are often a load of rubbish. These apps offer a solution to one of the most-loathed smartphone problems in the world and promise miracles. There are only a few exceptions to the truth that battery-saving apps are merely billboards disguised as useful apps.

To really increase battery life, you have to reduce energy demand from the operating system and all running services and apps. So to be effective, energy-saving apps would need to take control of running Android. But since Android doesn't can't be controlled without root privileges, apps available in the Play Store can't simply step in and take control. At best, apps can advise or warn you when you're chewing through too many Energon cubes, but that's about it. If it closes power-hungry apps, those apps will likely automatically reopen anyway. Thus, the effect is reversed and energy consumption could actually increase.

The alternative? Open your Battery settings and check what is going on. Google is getting much better at managing this for you. Turning on Adaptive Battery will also help a huge deal as it will limit battery for apps which you rarely use.

What other Android apps should I uninstall?

Consider removing any app you don't use, or any that seem to cause a particularly big battery drain, or consume excessive data. You can check which apps have the largest impact on the last two things by going to your battery settings page or data usage page in your Settings menu. There are often alternatives to power-hungry apps that you regularly use, so give one of those a try and you might grow to love it as much as the original.

Which Android apps do you think should be uninstalled? Which ones are you having trouble removing? Let us know in the comments below.

This article has been rewritten since first publication. Comments below may not reflect current content.