So this distro caught my eye because on its themes, when i installed it. It was so cool till i notice Firefox running slow, i opened the terminal then i typed "snap list" randomly because i wanna see if there is snaps, there is snaps. Is there a way to safely remove it without damaging my system and also not damage it when i like upgrade if theres a new version? Thanks.
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Did you even search for any ways to do it on this site?
There are numerous blogs on doing this; How to completely remove snap - #2 by franksmcb is just one of many.
FYI: If it was me, I'd read up on the consequences which have been written about by developers first; sure the link I provided was written by a Ubuntu MATE developer & it will work; but you do mention upgrades to a new version which the link I provided does not cover; but many of the actual blogs addressing the topic do cover.
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Thank you, sorry for not researching it as i was too busy working on my cleanly installed Ubuntu MATE laptop.
Welcome, @cappynine98 to the community!
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Thank you so much, i really like the os and it's themes as well, distro hopping stopped, can't wait to game on my old laptop smoothly!
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Not sure if possible, but maybe remove Firefox from Snaps. There seems to be a lot of complaints of Firefox running slow under snaps
Having Firefox default installation as a Snap package is a Canonical-specific (Ubuntu parent company) preference and requirement for the default distro installation.
For some reason, they think it would provide a more secure encapsulation of net-walking. That configuration is not fully "proven-in" as user-expectations integrated. I had to revert to Debian package installation because the snap environment blocked my access to any files or web pages previously downloaded to various partitions outside of the snap-encapsulated profile tree. 
You are not forced to live with Firefox as a snap.
Also, you are not forced to remove ALL snaps, just to get back to non-snap Firefox. It might be best to keep some of the other snap packages as snap, depending on your context. You must individually decide what is best for your context, especially if you are running a Ubuntu-flavoured Distro (as I do).
I know there is a way to prevent a fully removed snap from being reinstalled (specificaly for Firefox; there was a sourceforge question on that) without disabling the snapd service.
Below I outline a similar sequence from another source (It's Foss). I offer this new process outline because the reference provided by @guiverc seems a bit terse, not giving much explanation or covering possible permutations.
---
Configuring for Debian package via Mozilla PPA
---
CRITICAL
Before proceeding, save your Firefox profile(s) outside of the usual installation trees, a separate backup set for each of the ~/.mozilla and ~/snap branches of Firefox. You have two methods to choose from:
- tar file (for the complete profile and plug-ins), or
- simple export of the bookmarks as JSON or HTML, if that's all you want to preserve.
According to the Its Foss article, these are the steps to follow.
Confirm Firefox is installed as a snap:
snap list | grep firefox
Once confirmed, do the following:
snap remove --purge firefox
apt purge firefox
This following preference directive tells apt that you prefer non-snap packages for Firefox:
cat >/etc/apt/preferences.d/firefox-no-snap <<EnDoFiLe
Package: firefox*
Pin: release o=Ubuntu*
Pin-Priority: -1
EnDoFiLe
Getting the Debian package directly from Mozilla:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/ppa
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -t 'o=LP-PPA-mozillateam' firefox
To enable auto-updates to PPA, where unattended-upgrades will not upgrade it automatically, use the command:
echo 'Unattended-Upgrade::Allowed-Origins:: "LP-PPA-mozillateam:${distro_codename}";' | sudo tee /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/51unattended-upgrades-firefox
Lastly, to prevent any overriding upgrade from installing a snap version to undo that preferred PPA installation, this new apt preference directive will take care of that:
cat >/etc/apt/preferences.d/mozillafirefoxppa <<EnDoFiLe
Package: firefox*
Pin: release o=LP-PPA-mozillateam
Pin-Priority: 501
EnDoFiLe
You can then merge back in your Firefox profile(s) folder by either
- unbundling you backup image from the tar file, or
- selectively retrieve the profile directory using rsync from your "offline/online" rsync mirror image.
My own profile under ~/.mozilla looks like this:
user@OasisMega1:~/.mozilla/firefox$ ls -l
total 44
drwx------ 6 user user 4096 Jul 27 15:36 'Crash Reports'
-rw-rw-r-- 1 user user 71 Oct 5 2019 installs.FAILSAFE
-rw-rw-r-- 1 user user 71 Jul 17 21:01 installs.ini
drwx------ 25 user user 4096 Aug 6 20:55 OasisMega1.FirefoxProfile_DEFAULT
drwx------ 16 user user 4096 Jun 25 2021 OasisMega1.FirefoxProfile_DEFUNCT
drwx------ 14 user user 4096 Jul 17 21:01 OasisMega1.FirefoxProfile.Geogebra
drwx------ 12 user user 4096 Nov 13 2023 OasisMega1.FirefoxProfile.Geogebra.BKUP
drwx------ 2 user user 4096 Sep 21 2023 'Pending Pings'
-rw-rw-r-- 1 user user 395 Jul 17 21:01 profiles.ini
-rw-rw-r-- 1 user user 316 Oct 5 2019 profiles.ini.FAILSAFE
-rw-rw-r-- 1 user user 395 Jul 17 17:08 profiles.ini.OasisMega1
user@OasisMega1:~/.mozilla/firefox$
and my profiles.ini contains:
[Install4F96D1932A9F858E]
Default=OasisMega1.FirefoxProfile_DEFAULT
Locked=1
[Profile1]
Name=FirefoxProfile_DEFUNCT
IsRelative=1
Path=OasisMega1.FirefoxProfile_DEFUNCT
[Profile0]
Name=FirefoxProfile_DEFAULT
IsRelative=1
Path=OasisMega1.FirefoxProfile_DEFAULT
Default=1
[General]
StartWithLastProfile=0
Version=2
[Profile2]
Name=Geogebra
IsRelative=1
Path=OasisMega1.FirefoxProfile.Geogebra
Choosing which to work with, I use
firefox -P
For more details on how to work with multiple profiles, I refer you to this Mozilla help page.
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I need to remove all snaps as it's slowing down my old laptop from starting up, i do like snaps but its slow and takes all of my cpu and ram so its no use.
There is linux mint mate 22. It would do the job or you do
snap list then snap remove every package and then apt-get purge snapd.
After that you would need to prevent the installation of snapd. You could install a dummy package with an utopic high version, set an apt setting or .. limitless options really. It works ok on my computer. In fact i did even prepatch the installation image and used calamares for install. However the installation process was half broken so installing it and then removing snap is easier and safer for a beginner i would assume.
This PPA is not related to Mozilla. Mozilla has no official PPAs at all.
In fact, Mozilla didn't have any apt repository for Firefox until recently. But now it has.
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@cappynine98, the reference I gave earlier for the It's Foss link covers the steps for the scenario of total removal and total disabling of snapd.
Presumably you know how to replace anything that was purged. 
Thank you, @ironfoot!
I guess my desire to get the non-snap package drove me to do something I have only done once before. Installing a package (having all appearance of legitimacy) without verifying where it came from.
Thank you very much for that security reminder and for that new link, which I will be using going forwards.
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You are welcome, @ericmarceau !
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Well like mint does not do the job for me as i needed some customization (ik mint is very customizable but i dont have time to do that and the wayland is experimental)
There are many ways to do it on this forum, all you have is to search it up, solved my issues. Just don't be lazy like me lol.
I use:
- Firefox as snap, and
- Thunderbird as snap - with adapted profiles.ini, but this was even before Thunderbird as snap
- since they were provided in Ubuntu
Firefox IS my daily driver AND development browser!
Except for the first versions as snap, I never had any issue / performance issue with Firefox & Thunderbird as snaps and that's the reason I did not opt for removing the snaps and installing the deb packages.
I used following PCs (not notebooks):
- Share your System Specs -- Super List - #144 by radax05
- Share your System Specs -- Super List - #177 by radax05
- and some additional
Currently I use this PC:
I know this is just my opinion and experience and may not help anyone.
Just wanted to say that some users may be happy with snaps, others not.
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