"Minimal" steps required to install F-Droid privileged extension?

Hello everybody,

What are the minimal steps required to install F-Droid’s privileged extension? Do I need to unlock the bootloader and install TWRP? Do I need to enable developer mode? Do I need to root the device? I would like to avoid any useless operation, I just want F-Droid apps to update without manual confirmation.
I am a Linux user, so using the command line is not an issue. I have some (limited) knowledge about ADB and fastboot mode since I used LineageOS on other devices, but this is my wife’s phone and would like to keep as vanilla as possible.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Hi and welcome to the forum!

Unlocking the bootloader is a necessity for any system modification.
You will need TWRP in any case I think, but you don’t have to install it, you can just temporarily boot it with fastboot boot twrp.img (replace twrp.img by the filename) when in fastboot mode. You can also install it, but it isn’t recommended on FP3 as it will break the OTA updates.

Yes, for enabling OEM unlocking and USB debugging.

Not necessarily.

You have two ways of doing:

  1. Flashing the official F-Droid Privileged Extension ZIP in TWRP. This should work, and doesn’t require root, but will require unlocking the bootloader and booting into TWRP (this is the best way I believe). Official instructions are available here. Though I am not quite sure if it will break OTA updates or not.
  2. If for any reason it doesn’t work, you can try with Magisk (but that will also mean rooting the device and installing the privileged extension as a Magisk module). But this is not the official way, and rooting the phone probably isn’t the best idea, and it will also break the OTA updates. At least, I can confirm it works on a FP2.
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Thank you very much for the answer.

I guess I will try to unlock the bootloader, boot TWRP without installing it and flash the privileged zip this way. Although…

Though I am not quite sure if it will break OTA updates or not.

This worries me a little bit. Do you mean break FPOS updates or do you mean I might have to reflash the privileged extension after each FPOS update?

All in all, it is a bit sad that F-Droid isn’t available by default in FPOS: it would make sense (to me) from an ethical perspective. I know, I could contribute if I had the skills. :slight_smile:

I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t make sense from Google’s perspective when they decide whether to give an Android OS their certification so that the vendor might legally include Google Apps and services in it, like Fairphone does in Fairphone OS :wink: … but I don’t have a source.

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Oh I see. Thank you google for protecting us from dangerous cryptocommunist neckbeards FLOSS enthusiasts then.

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Break FPOS updates. At least, that’s what installing Magisk or flashing TWRP will do.
I guess as you’re modifying the system partition, installing the privileged extension will probably break FPOS updates.

If I were you I’d experiment and return the phone to its original state if it didn’t work, but I understand if you don’t want to.

If I were you I’d experiment and return the phone to its original state if it didn’t work, but I understand if you don’t want to.

I am willing to try (for science!), but I am not sure what the process to “unflash” the privileged extension would be. If it means factory reset then I would pass since it’s my wife’s phone and she had enough of my FLOSS radicalism for now. :slight_smile:

I’m afraid it would indeed mean factory reset or even manual reinstallation of the OS.
Though I can’t certify anything, I neither have a FP3 nor use myself the privileged extension.

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