Snapchat named as worst app for battery drain

AVG has released a list of the worst performance killing apps on Android, and Snapchat has the unenviable honour of coming out on top.

Fri, 23 Oct, 2015 - 01:00

It overtook notorious battery drainers, Facebook and Spotify, to claim the top spot. Snapchat puts phone batteries under all sorts of stress because it uses GPS, camera, Wi-Fi, and mobile data simultaneously.

AVG’s study looked at the top battery and data-consuming apps running on Android smartphones and tablets, using data from over one million anonymous Android app users. It then used metrics and logs collected by Android’s operating system to work out which apps had the most impact on data use, battery life, and storage capacity.

Amazon Shopping UK and Spotify Music ranked behind Snapchat of the worst offenders of apps that are turned on by users. The study also revealed that Facebook Pages Manager is the worst culprit among auto-start apps, as it stores and tracks content like followers, statistics and comments at all times.

Here are the results of AVG's study

Overall performance impact (auto-run at startup):

1. Facebook

2. Google Play Services

3. Facebook Pages Manager

4. BBM

5. Words With Friends

Overall performance impact (run by users):

1. Snapchat

2. Amazon Shopping UK

3. Spotify Music

4. LINE