Note: F-Droid requires root privileges to install Privileged Extension as a system "priv-app". https://f-droid.org/packages/org.fdroid.fdroid can make use of system privileges or permissions to install, update and remove applications on its own. The only way to obtain those privileges is to become a system app. This is where the Privileged Extension comes in - being a separate app and much smaller, it can be installed as a system app and communicate with the main app via AIDL IPC. This has several advantages: * Reduced disk usage in the system partition * System updates don't remove F-Droid * The process of installing into system via root is safer This is packaged as an OTA (Over-The-Air) update ZIP file. It must be installed using TWRP or other Android recovery that can flash updates to the system from the /data/data/org.fdroid.fdroid folder on the /data partition. The standalone APK is called https://f-droid.org/packages/org.fdroid.fdroid.privileged, and that provides updates after this OTA package is installed.