AVG reveals the worst storage, battery and data hogging apps

AVG, an antivirus and app cleaning software prodiver, has put together its latest quarterly study to help identify the worst battery, data, storage and performance consuming apps on Android smartphones and tablets. The list contains a number of familiar faces from the last report, as well as a few new entries.

It seems that Samsung’s “bloatware” still can’t seem to shake its resource cravings, particularly in the battery draining category. Although, there aren’t as many Samsung’s apps in the top 10 this time around. In the battery cateogories, Samsung’s Beaming and Security Updates services appear as the two worst run-at-startup apps, while Samsung’s WatchOn remote app was the most energy consuming app run by users.

Again, we see some familiar faces when it comes to hampering a handset’s performance and eating up message space. Facebook, Instagram, Spotify and Google’s Chrome Browser are now regular contenders in the “storage eaters” category. Interestingly, the NY Times app previously held the number 1 spot for storage consumption, but is now completely out of the top 10. Facebook, Spotify and Instagram are also the three worst apps if you want to keep your Android devices running smoothly, all of which also featured in the top 5 last quarter. The Amazon AppStore has also leapt into the top 5 this year.

As you may expect, social media and video platforms are the worst for your data usage, with Facebook, Instagram, Spotify, Nextflix and Tumblr all ranking highly, although the Daily Mail app is the worst offender. As they consistently rank highly in almost every category, these social apps populate AVG’s top 10 overall performance sapping apps of Q4 2014.

If you are suffering from performance issues, AVG also has some top tips for you:

1. Turn off unnecessary notifications and notification apps
2. Turn off app specific features that you don’t use, such as location tracking
3. Regularly delete cache data for larger apps to save space
4. Where possible, limit the amount of data consumed by adjusting refresh intervals and/or WiFi only settings
5. Lower your display brightness and turn off wireless features (WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC, etc) when you’re not using them

The report also contains lots of information on AVG user habits, commonly installed apps and statistics for games, although obviously 3D content is more performance draining than most other applications. You can read the full details right here.