ROM Toolbox doubles as a fully functional free autostart manager

There are plenty of custom ROMs for Android phones out there, and plenty of apps to manage all these ROMs.

ROM Toolbox is one of them. Its latest update kills some bugs and adds some features. Obviously ROM Toolbox manages ROMs, but is does much more than that. So much more that it's a useful app even if your phone runs a stock ROM.

Its ROM manager installs ROMs and other zips, and lets you back up your current ROM. It can also reboot your phone into recovery mode so you don't have to keep power and volume down pressed on boot or whatever key combo sends your phone to the recovery console. ROM Toolbox is not as good as ROM Manager by ClockworkMod, but it's got the basics covered.

And not just the basics. ROM Toolbox is a kind of swiss army knive to tinker with your Android system. It does eye candy like themes, custom boot logos, fonts and status bar icons, and more. There's a bare bones CPU tweaker, a build.prop file editor (might be useful if you want to impersonate another phone), a file browser and a terminal emulator, an app manager (too bad that its best features are only available in the paid version), and ROM Toolbox can block ads too.

There are plenty of dedicated apps that do all these things better, but ROM Toolbox puts it all in one package. And it has one killer feature that makes the app a useful addition to your phone no matter what ROM you use, stock ROMs included.

That killer feature is its autostart manager.

There are plenty of apps that stop other apps from autostarting when your phone boots up, but ROM Toolbox goes further. It can prevent autostarting on boot, it can stop apps from autostarting on connectivity change (mobile data to WiFi, etc.), it stops Google Maps from snooping online whenever you charge your phone, it keeps pushy apps like JaxtrSMS asleep when your WiFi wakes up, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are dozens of other events that can trigger apps to launch, and ROM Toolbox lets you control all of them.

Autostarts only does it for money, Autorun Manager limits most of its useful features to its paid version, but ROM Toolbox does all its autostart management for free.

My swiss army knive is a useful tool even though I only use its corkscrew. ROM Toolbox is a useful tool even though I only use its autostart manager.

• ROM Toolbox on the Android Market Google play

Update: Gemini is another great free autostart manager. It doesn't have all the extra bells and whistles that ROM Toolbox has, but Gemini lets you control some extra autostart receivers that are ignored by other autostart managers.

• Gemini App Manager (Google play)

Another update: Autostarts is available for free from F-Droid.

• Autostarts (F-Droid)