Turning off or restarting a mobile phone for just a few minutes a day has significant performance and security implications. Manufacturers regularly recommend this practice to avoid freezing and slowdowns. And no, the high-end is not exempt from the potential problems that not turning off the phone at all can cause.

let’s talk performance. Although there are still phones released with 4 GB of RAM, 6 GB is the new standard in the middle segment. In the case of the high-end, it is the usual 8 GB, and in the most ambitious configurations 12 GB as the norm. Android is no longer the RAM-inefficient system of a few years ago, but it’s still a resource-intensive platform.

Although the system automatically turns processes off and on to manage RAM most efficiently, this decision isn’t solely up to Google and the AOSP code: manufacturers are responsible for how RAM is managed in its own customization layer.

Sometimes there are processes that don’t shut down completely, creating remnants in RAM that can cause performance issues. Restarting the phone is a gateway to use our phone with less workload.

Yes, processes keep freezing. Android is a background processing system. Google services, service frameworks of apps, background links. Especially if we have older versions of the system, it is likely that we will have some battery drain from time to time, even if we have closed the applications from multitasking.

Doing this process does not eliminate processes 100%, in these cases the most effective solution is to restart. When it comes to summertime, it’ll be easy to notice if we’re freezing any action: The phone will be pretty hot while we’re standing there doing nothing with it.

security implications: The American NSA recommends restarting the phone at least once a month. Reason? Safety. The argument has no weight

Regular phone reboots won’t stop the army of cybercriminals or contract spy companies that are wreaking havoc and doubt their ability to keep any information secure and private in our digital lives. But it can make even the most savvy hackers work harder to maintain access to a phone and steal data. Angus King, US Senate Intelligence Committee.

Restarting the phone is not a magic solution to deal with the problem. malwarehowever, this is a minor obstacle that may prevent our device from being your preferred destination.

easy automation. Restarting the phone once a day or once a week is something that takes no more than a few seconds, but it’s still a bit of a nuisance. On most phones with a customization layer (like Samsung or Xiaomi), this process can be automated from the settings.

Searching for “restart” in the search bar of the settings, we will access submenus that allow us to automatically restart the phone while we sleep (or when we want to schedule). A good solution to start the day with a mobile process cleaning and guarantee its performance.

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