I have an application which once the user runs the app it has a long process to run, such as downloading needed files and setting it all up and what not. I would like to move the process to the background and show a notification in the status bar while the process is running. 

What would my best strategy be to keep the process alive while downloading the files and what not. I've read about services, but have also heard they're easily killed? Should I use a service or should I just run a thread with maximum priority and just throw a notification up and close it when the process is over?

What's best thank you for any help. Process by the way is about ten minutes no longer than it takes to download a rom in rom manager basically just want that same setup thank you for any help.