HTC Boost+ for Android

HTC Boost+ is a new -- beta -- tweaking application by HTC that the company has released to Google's Play Store for devices running Android.

The new application is available for all devices running Android 5.0 or higher regardless of whether they have been manufactured by HTC.

The application has been designed to free up disk space and RAM on the device it is run on just like many other applications that you find for Android that do the same.

There is CCleaner for Android for instance, and at least some device manufacturers put their own cleaning apps on their devices automatically (Xiaomi does it for instance with an app called Cleaner).

HTC Boost+

The app displays storage and memory information on start which highlight the current status of both, and the total that is available.

The lower half of the screen lists the four tools the app ships with that allow you to free up storage or RAM.

• Boost: the name giving mode scans the device for applications or services that are running, and suggests some that you can free up memory from. In addition to that, it provides you with an option to enable smart boost which automates the clearing of memory in the background.
• Manage Apps: This is a basic uninstaller that allows you to remove non-system apps from the Android device. The only advantage it has over the default uninstaller is that you can pick multiple apps for removal at the same time. You may change the sort order from largest to oldest used or name instead. Especially oldest used may be useful as it lists apps you have not used the longest at the top.
• Clear Junk: this works similarly to the Boost mode, only that it checks for temporary files and app installers that are stored on the device.
• Lock Apps: you need to give Boost+ usage rights before you can use the feature. Afterwards, you are asked to create an unlock pattern and enter your birthday before you can lock applications. This protects applications from being opened by requiring users to draw the same unlock pattern during launch to open the application.

The app's Boost and Clear Junk modes give you options when it comes to what is cleared or cleaned on the device. If you don't want caches cleaned for instance, then you can disable the feature to only clean other areas pointed out by the application.

While junk cleaning may make sense at times, especially if you are a heavy user and never ran an application like HTC Boost+ before, clearing memory does not make that much sense as applications will quickly use memory again. You can verify this by running the "boost" operation several times on the device.

The only way to free up memory permanently is by reducing the number of (background) applications that run on the device.

Closing Words

HTC Boost+ is a beta application at the time of writing. It is well designed, but the features that it provides are not really that different from other tweaking or cleaning applications available for Android.

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