Hi, i’ve installed Norton mobile security (2.5 lite)on my galaxy s2 running on android ICS 4.0.3. I notice that there 2 are process and 1 service running under norton. One of the process is google play store. Why is this play store running under norton? Also i notice the combine RAM usage keeps increasing (especially for play store) until around 40Mb. Is this normal? I have another phone running with android GB (it has play store process too) but the combine RAM hardly goes more than 25Mb. Hope to get some advice. Thanks.
Hi vithnagar.
Welcome to the Community.
Sorry but just at the moment I cannot answer your questions. This may be because I don't understand them and don't have a Galaxy S2 or ICS. So can you help me understand a little better?
When you say " I notice that there 2 are process and 1 service running under norton." where do you see this? Is this through some feature of the Android operating system or an app? Either way can you provide some more details please?
I also notice that Google Play seems to take up more and more space and so I regularly clear out the cache but I have not kept any records so I cannot currently comment on what size it would normally get to with my system.
Does your other phone also have NMS on it? Are you seeing a similar situation on that - apart from the smaller space used by Google Play?
I look forward to hearing back from you.
Hi Andmike,
Thanks for your reply. Let me explain, on my galaxy s2 phone (android running ice cream sandwich 4.0.3) when I see the current running application (back ground applications) I could see NMS and the RAM its consuming. Under NMS its stated that its running 2 process and 1 service. One process and 1 service belongs to Norton and the other process states as Google Play Store. As for the Norton process and service the RAM consume is usually low (12 MB to 18MB) but the other process Google Play Store consumes sometimes up to 25MB. Combining both NMS shows as consuming 30 to 40MB at times. When I force stop Norton and restart it, Google play store disappears, but then restarting the phone starts it again. At one time when I had to factory reset the phone and re-install NMS, it was running only 1 service and 1 process and RAM hardly goes beyond 20MB, until I restart the phone, then Google play store appear again. Under the Google Play Store process its says "Google market service billing is running". I do believe its genuine, since my other phone also android but ginger bread version and has the same process and service but then the combine RAM consumed normally around 20 to 25MB. I just wanted to know what why is Google play store associated with Norton and also is the RAM consumed normal? Thanks....
Hi vthinagar.
Please forgive me if I get this wrong as I have not seen ICS in operation but I suspect it is close enough to my 2.2 to try and answer or at least a half one.
I now assume that when you say "when I see the current running application (back ground applications) I could see NMS and the RAM its consuming. Under NMS its stated that its running 2 process and 1 service. " you are referring to starting at the Android home screen, selecting menu: Settings: Applications: Running services. When I select that I see a number of items including NMS but not normally Google Play. However my version of NMS is not sourced from Google Play and so does not need to check its license with Google Play. However when I start up an app that is registered with Google Play then starting that also shows Google Play on the "Running Services" screen. So my assumption is that you are seeing this because NMS is trying to check that it has a valid license.
As for the memory used by Google Play then I have noticed that over time the Cache associated with Google Play grows and I therefore clear it out every now and again. If NMS is causing Google Play to start up then the Cache associated with Google Play (in its general use) will presumably show. I have just checked this by ensuring that Google Play was closed and with no Cache. I then started up an app that checks a license. Under "Running Services" this showed Google Play as using 5.4 MB. I then logged onto Google Play to check that my apps were up to date, updated one and then went back to "Running Services" to see what it said about Google Play next to my licensed app. It now showed not 5.4 MB but 20 MB! So the size of the memory used seems to be that associated with Google Play and not just the app it is shown next to in Running Services.
I'm not sure that the above answers your questions but I hope it moves us both closer to an understanding.
Over to you.
Hi Andmike,
Thanks for your reply.Now i have a better understanding of the matter. Im running NMS Lite thought before i get the full version i wanted to know how it works etc. Im not sure if it makes sense of the RAM usage, or whether if it will slow down the phone but i do feel uncomfortable knowing 2nd process actually uses more RAM than the main app. itself. Lastly could you please check for me the NMS RAM usage on your android 2.2? I could compare the usage on my other mobile running android ginger bread 2.3 also having NMS from google play store.
Hello again vthinagar.
If your concern is - will NMS slow my Galaxy S2? Then I can fairly certainly say - not that you will notice. Most of the time it sits quietly in the background, the only time I notice it is when it is scheduled to do a full scan of my device plus SD card which can take several minutes and then takes up some noticeable processor power on my small, old and resource limited device. If you don't have it what would you use in its place? Would you do without security software? My device has 416 MB of memory and 208 MB of internal storage of which about 5 MB is taken up by NMS. Compared with your device these figures look puny.
However to answer your question about how big it is, or seems to be. If I go to "Running Services" it shows a figure of 16 MB. I do not understand what the 16 MBis referring to so cannot comment on that. However in "manage applications" its total size is shown as 4.96 MB or which "application" is 4.23 MB and "Data" is 744 KB. Checking through another app gives similar results to the "manage applications" figures.
I hope that helps you.
Hi Andmike,
Thank again for your reply. I will definately have an anti-virus, and i like Norton. Been using Norton on my pc since 4 years ago. What have been going on my mind is, will the RAM usage be lower had i download from Norton website? Is the google play store process is just eating my resources?
However as you said, comparing my other mobile the RAM usage almost same as yours. Probaly for my S2, since ICS is new, maybe some bugs or could be its normal. I will give it a pass now. Thanks!
Hi vthinagar.
Two thoughts.
If you are using an android device it is pretty difficult to avoid Google Play - and you do have plenty of resources on your phone.
If you have Norton on your PC and are thinking of using Norton on your mobile have you considered Norton One? I have put a link to it here if you are interested. That would give you the use of NMS without going through Google Play!
Good luck in whatever you decide.
Hello Andmike,
You are right about android and google. For your info yesterday the RAM usage when upto 48Mb, i notice everytime i browse google play or download, RAM increases for google play store under NMS (as you told me) I restarted the phone and the NMS RAM usage drop to 15Mb. Guess for time being this what i could do.
I will look into Norton One, sounds good.
Thanks for the info.
Hi vthinagar.
You do not necessarily have to restart the phone to clear the Google Play cache, though restarting the phone every now and again is probably a good idea - it should give you a clean reboot. You can clear the Google Play cache by going to Menu: Settings: Applications: Manage applications: then select Google Play store and "clear cache". Or if you would like to try the Norton Mobile Utilities Beta app which is available free from Google Play. That gives you an opportunity to monitor your memory and clear all the caches you wish at one go. Just a thought.
All the best.
Hi Andmike,
Unfortunately clearing the cache does nothing to RAM usage for google play store under NMS. In fact my cache was empty and NMS RAM was 30Mb, im not sure if its stored in my memory, it just uses my RAM for google billing service. What i dont understand is why it keeps increasing in size and uses RAM more than NMS itself? NMS should be stand alone and indipendent of any other software. Well lets wait and see or perhaps i should try Norton One.
A couple clarifying points to hopefully help things along as well.
Norton One is definitely a great option. Another is Norton 360 Everywhere. Either one would entitle you to a copy of NMS.
As to RAM usage, you're right that the reason why you see Google Play associated with NMS is the In App billing. That should go away if/when you upgrade to NMS from NMS Lite. If you decide instead to go with Norton One/360 Everywhere you won't see Google Play associated with NMS.
RAM usage on an Android device is different than RAM usage on a PC. The assoicated cache with an App/process is going to be with respect to data that resides on internal memory (or external SD card if the app is installed there). An App can exist in the foreground (actively running or open) or background. In either state, the process will make use of some of your RAM. There are two ways that amount is managed. The first is by the App. Some apps will try to limit how much RAM they make use of. The second is by the OS itself. Android is designed to send all non-active apps that have been accessed as a background process in RAM. This is to speed up the process of re-lauching that process when you want it to become active. If it ever looks like the amount of RAM is going to go above what the OS considers reasonable (or there's a spike) the OS will kill that process and free up the RAM. Until you reboot, if the amount of RAM a process is using increases you will usually not see that amount decrease. On a PC this would be cause for alarm. For Android not so much.
Apologies for the lengthy response.
Hi Eric,
Thanks for the explanation. Gives me some idea. This my first android. Anyway what baffles me is NMS application which consist of norton and google play process consumes the higest RAM. Unlike my other android but running on ginger bread phone which also NMS lite, RAM consume is low. Google play store process consumes lower RAM comparing to Norton process. This makes sense. I wonder if NMS has been optimized yet for ice cream sandwich system? Just a thought!
For NMS, I'd compare the amount of RAM used for NMS - Google Play for the true NMS usage. The differences in usage by Google Play are likely due to internal changes of the Market based on the version of the Google Play Store/Android Market installed. I'd be curious to see any screenshots you'd be willing to share of course.
Hi Eric,
Maybe the difference of RAM used by NMS for ginger bread and ICS is because of different software itself. But I just feel the RAM used by NMS in ICS just looks high. Could be normal too..Anyway below are the screenshots for gingerbread 2.3 and ICS 4.0.3.,
The above is for the ICS galaxy s2 phone. ( today when I checked the total RAM decreased...To 30Mb..I didn't do anything..I always thought it normally keeps increasing (the Max I've seen until 48Mb) until I reboot.
The below is of the my gingerbread phone: Normally NMS RAM usage goes Max till 25Mb here...At an average it stays around 15 to 20 Mb.
On another matter altogether, I already have Norton Internet Security 2012 Iin my pc and its expiring in few months time and being a Norton preferred customer I got an offer to upgrade to Norton 360. Other than anti-spyware, storage space and 3 devices license, what could be the extra benefits of 360 compared to NIS? So far I just love NIS and wondering if I should change.
Thanks for the time...
The image is a little fuzzy. Is it 10 MB on ICS and 7 MB on GB? For NMS I wouldn't compare the two different values for Google Play as the versions of Google play are different between the two as well as the memory usage for that will also be dependant upon what Apps you have installed/running on each device.
As to the NIS vs. N360 question, you can check out the following thread:
If you go with Norton 360 everywhere you'll get entitlement to NMS as well. Norton One actually allows you to pick between NIS and N360, but has the multiple device entitlement, etc.
Hi Eric,
Yup its 10 and 7. Curiosity has made me started this thread and I did some searching etc regarding Android, now I have at least an idea how android works. I will stick to NIS but I will use Norton One. Hopefully with this, NMS will run independently.
Thanks for all your support and advice.
(Btw, i'm a Norton user for 7 to 8 years, its only since 2009 that i really liked Norton because of its lightness and memory usage, which why i was curious about RAM usage in my phone. Keep up the good work..:)...)
Me too facing the same problem, and another one with android browser, whenevr I use android browser norton eats up al the memory, m running ICS 4.0.4 on Sony Xperia Ray.
Could you clarify the amount of memory? Keep in mind that Android does not manage memory in a way similar to Windows. How much memory is used?
Here is my screenshot
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