Without ads, Android apps could be more than twice as power-efficient!!

*brokewino.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/blog-what-is-android.gif

A team of researchers from Purdue University and Microsoft has discovered that up to 75 percent of app-related battery drain in Android can be caused by ad-serving processes. Led by Abhinav Pathak, the team developed an energy profiler named EProf, which is able to perform fine-grained analysis of the battery use of any Android app, separating each thread inside and recording its energy use. The team tested five popular Android applications including Angry Birds, FreeChess, and the New York Times app using a HTC Passion (Nexus One) running Android 2.3.

In testing Angry Birds, Pathak recorded energy usage for one level of gameplay, and found that less than 30 percent of the app's battery drain was caused by the game itself. The other 70 percent was consumed by the uploading of user information metrics, location, and downloading and displaying of adverts. Pathak notes that although the user profiling occurs only once, new adverts are displayed with each level, causing similar battery drain to occur throughout gameplay.

In FreeChess — a game downloaded over 10 million times — the team started a game and profiled a 33-second period. The test yielded similar results. with around 70 percent of battery drain being caused by ad-related processes. It wasn't only ad-serving apps that wasted battery life on non-essential functions, however, with both the native browser and the New York Times app expending around 15 percent of their total usage performing user tracking.

Pathak explained to us that the team's objective wasn't to expose any particular app or advertising agency for using too much energy, but rather to develop software that can help developers and advertisers to improve the efficiency of their software. Android ads don't have to consume so much energy — they're just poorly coded at the moment, the study suggested. The team plans to release the EProf tool for free under an open-source license soon.

Update: Abhinav Pathak has just reached out to let us know that his team is currently working with Microsoft Research to bring the EProf tool to Windows Phone, in addition to expanding its research on energy efficiency.

Source

Interesting. I any way play my games in offline mode

Turn GPS/3G/WIFI/BLUETOOTH OFF.
Good Enough To make phone run for whole day.
No Ads.
Root The Phone.
Throw out Bloatwares.
And done.No need For Premium Apps.
Battery Save.Mission Accomplished.

Rooting won't throw ads in built in apps.

The only major built in/pre-loaded crap is Google App suite.
Rest is manufacturer specific customisation and UI.

Looks like a study being promoted by app developers in an attempt to give boost in sales of "paid apps"

On a serious note, it might be true. I have never liked the nagging ads anyway. But the message is clear. If you can, buy the paid or donate versions of the apps. Helps both the devs and the battery!

dashing.sujay said:
Rooting won't throw ads in built in apps.

yup. apps will try to connect to internet (which is turned off) and download ads. i don't think ads come build in with the apps. so they keep trying and eating battery and processing power.

^Most free apps do carry ads.

Hey man., what about the app -- AdFree -- i guess every root user got this and it's good.

dashing.sujay said:
Rooting won't throw ads in built in apps.

I didnt say rooting will stop ads.
I meant that rooting allows removing preloaded junk which helps in saving some juice of battery.

If a developer has written different threads for ad processing and main app activity, I will consider him a good developer.

Although I highly doubt claimed figure of 75%,Will surely like to see how they have measured power consumption and linked the same to battery usage.

@devx : Apps like adFree modify host file to redirect queries to popular ad serving services to localhost. So they get null or 404 responses.

Running OS under root account give access to system partitions, hence prerequisitefor apps like adFree

So installing adFree or turning off data will decrease power consumption to a extent (no CPU cycles will be wasted in ad data processing as app is now getting null responses) but will not entirely eliminate it (as calls to there services will still be made by app at periodic intervals).

If it wasnt for Ads google wouldnt earn money
So
No ads? No android
And we all would still be stuck with propriety OSs, Brew OS, Meego, Symbian, iOS and BBos

Oh lord. the horror.

^^ lol?

If you think the "embedded apps", which sucks the life out of battery, is the "only" source of "income" for Google, then you really need to open your eyes buddy!

I will try to give you a head start in understanding where does the money comes from Google. Wiki, "AdWords".

Ummm yeah but isnt that what you are talking about?
Im sorry if I said something wrong, Ive never owned an android before. I thought that free apps had those AdWords/AdSense advertisement system in them.

Sujeet said:
Turn GPS/3G/WIFI/BLUETOOTH OFF.
Good Enough To make phone run for whole day.
No Ads.
Root The Phone.
Throw out Bloatwares.
And done.No need For Premium Apps.
Battery Save.Mission Accomplished.

Why not turn off the freakin phone itself and buy a Nokia 1100?

devx said:
Hey man., what about the app -- AdFree -- i guess every root user got this and it's good.

You do not need another stupid app for this....you can patch a few host files yourself and it is easy.

Yeah good idea...but 1100 aint available anymore lol.

Have you got one.I am ready to buy.

I just disable apps like games, tools, etc from avast firewall. That way they cant show ads, and use AdFree it blocks almost all in-app ads.

I doubt the 70% usage statistics being presented by them. Yes they consume battery but it shouldn't be this much. When developing a mobile app, you need to consider many facts. Battery is also one of them and I doubt that re-known developers would ignore this fact if ads were consuming this much of battery.

sameer.pur said:
..... re-known developers would ignore this fact if ads were consuming this much of battery.

WTF is a RE-KNOWN dev?
On a serious note,Google should screen Android market more rigidly before creating hype on jellybean or whatever..it has become a junk yard.

G

thats not true always.
what if i block app by firewall .
what if the device has host file changed to localhost .

red dragon said:
On a serious note,Google should screen Android market more rigidly before creating hype on jellybean or whatever..it has become a junk yard.

One day it will be quantity Vs quality (Android Vs iOs).

gopi_vbboy said:
thats not true always.
what if i block app by firewall .
what if the device has host file changed to localhost .

Nope, the inbuilt ads will still try to access and consume the resources.

G

dashing.sujay said:
One day it will be quantity Vs quality (Android Vs iOs).

Nope, the inbuilt ads will still try to access and consume the resources.

yes but firewall can block them

gopi_vbboy said:
yes but firewall can block them

Mate, the firewall will just block "network access", it won't stop the threads from doing their task. Let me explain, you can stop automatic updates of an antivirus, but can't the program itself to "attempt" that.

Take it like, if there doesn't exits any tower then does the phone stops searching from network, given that you don't change automatic mode. (there is no manual mode in apps)

someone please clarify this: are ~~apps~~ ads built in or they are hosted somewhere?

^Explain your question pls ?

What he means is, are the ads built into apps or hosted somewhere else..??

Well, it works just like google adwords in your webpages. You just need to put the script, google will automatically put ads.

Otherwise there are many apps for which authors make ads as static, what I mean is, they provide ad for some other apps of them.

ah crap. i mean ads. sorry. big typo. googled a bit but this query is unanswered.

thanks krishnandu

Of course the ads are in built as a part of that app, just consider it a feature. And why you can't remove it? Can you remove a feature of any app until and unless you edit its source code? (don't say resource hacker)

dashing.sujay said:
Mate, the firewall will just block "network access", it won't stop the threads from doing their task. Let me explain, you can stop automatic updates of an antivirus, but can't the program itself to "attempt" that.

Take it like, if there doesn't exits any tower then does the phone stops searching from network, given that you don't change automatic mode. (there is no manual mode in apps)

This.

dashing.sujay said:
One day it will be quantity Vs quality (Android Vs iOs).

QFT

^QFT ?

@Sam It's ok.

@dashing.sujay Well we can block ads using Adblock. The idea behind it is same as in PC. Adding the ads URL to hostsfile so that they don't get connected to Internet.

But static ads will work in that case. Those can't be blocked I guess.

The whole (most) point is of static ads only.

G

dashing.sujay said:
Mate, the firewall will just block "network access", it won't stop the threads from doing their task. Let me explain, you can stop automatic updates of an antivirus, but can't the program itself to "attempt" that.

Take it like, if there doesn't exits any tower then does the phone stops searching from network, given that you don't change automatic mode. (there is no manual mode in apps)

Ya i understand that.But those threads hardly drain any power attempting for data.

red dragon said:
WTF is a RE-KNOWN dev?
On a serious note,Google should screen Android market more rigidly before creating hype on jellybean or whatever..it has become a junk yard.

LOL, crap... damn Spelling mistakes. I meant 'renowned', but whatever.

On another note, there are many who are in favor of having a app submission process like Apple App Store ( 2 week submission time for even an update )
but I support the current process. Though Google should review the apps internally more frequently.

Sam said:
someone please clarify this: are ~~apps~~ ads built in or they are hosted somewhere?

Most 'Ad Services' provide a special type of view and support library ( a .jar file mostly) which can be used to add the view in your app and it automatically calls ads with respect to your API key which you get when registering with the service. So they are not essentially part of your app. Run in a separate thread. I haven't used one so far but this is what I know for this.

gopi_vbboy said:
Ya i understand that.But those threads hardly drain any power attempting for data.

That's what we think

But this damn research says diff story.

sameer.pur said:
Most 'Ad Services' provide a special type of view and support library ( a .jar file mostly) which can be used to add the view in your app and it automatically calls ads with respect to your API key which you get when registering with the service. So they are not essentially part of your app. Run in a separate thread. I haven't used one so far but this is what I know for this.

thanks. confusion cleared :razz:

now wth was my post removed!? :/

TDF censoring here..??? :O or is it MODs love for me?