A popular antivirus software firm has identified the top five Android apps which drain battery life and affect your smartphone's performance.

Smartphone users love running their favorite apps on their mobile devices, but they hate how quickly their battery percentage drops when using their phones, and how devices can often lag and run slow when using certain apps. Running apps that require huge amounts of battery power and memory usage can significantly impact user's experience.

Another thorn in smartphone user's side is data consumption. While some users have unlimited data plans, many smartphone owners are limited to a set amount of data per month, or have their speed throttled back to 3G when reaching a certain threshold. Most users expect streaming services to be the largest source of data consumption, however, that is not always the case. For example, Netflix notably did not make the list.

Now, smartphone owners can identify which of these apps actually drain battery and take up memory the most, thanks to a new report from antivirus software manufacturer AVG. The results are very interesting, with some of the expected culprits showing up on the list, along with some surprises.

Number one on AVG's list of top ten performance draining apps, that is the "apps with the most impact on battery life, data consumption and storage" was Facebook. Music streaming service Spotify came in at number two, with Instagram at three. Next on the list was the Path app, followed by Amazon's shopping app. Others in the top ten included the LINE messaging and calling app, and The Daily Mail news app, which is surprising given it is simply an information resource that would not be expected to actually affect performance more than many messaging and streaming services, for example.

Users who have an attachment to these particular apps may wonder what they can do to prevent their phone's performance from being affected while still fulfilling their desire to stay connected. While limiting app use is an obvious fix, in some cases there may be a better solution. For users of the Facebook, Amazon Shopping and Daily Mail apps for example, device owners can use the online or mobile versions of the sites by connecting directly through the internet as opposed to through the dedicated apps in order to help avoid performance drain while still maintaining a similar user experience.