Without snap, Brave can still be installed in Ubuntu (without compiling it from sources), by adding the Brave repository near the Ubuntu repos. So it can be installed without snap, just that the one supported by Ubuntu is the snap version.
For about a week, I've installed and tested pretty much all the browsers I could find in the search of a replace for FF. There are not many choices left. All are derived from the same 2-3 main browser engines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_engineMost of the current browsers are based on Chromium. There are 2-3 flavors of de-Googlified Chrome, but some are hard to install, or lag behind in terms of patches. Also, they have virtually no support and you have to deal by yourself with any problems you may bumped into.
Another problem with not so famous or even independent builds is who would you trust more when it came to privacy, or to run any other program. Would you rather trust a known data harvester like Google, or some random developer from Github?
With Google, at least I know Chrome doesn't try to steal my credit card.
From the old Firefox (v54 or so, the previous engine IDK by heart), there is Pale Moon. I like it, but again, it's the extensions that matters most. uBlock can be installed in Pale Moon with some workarounds, but not many others, for example I couldn't find anything on par with the "Dark Reader" from the current FF.
If you consider Browser+Extensions as a packet, then there are 2 options:
- use a big distribution, like Chrome or Firefox, they have all the extensions in the world
- use a well packed browser that comes with most of the extensions preinstalled, like Opera or Brave.
So far, the most freedom combined with abundance of extensions is in Firefox. Chrome scares me. Opera is good, but is still running on the fame of Opera 12 and before. They lost the leadership when they decided to re-write Opera 12, and since then, they struggle. Opera is nice, but they won't have a second chance at becoming the top desktop browser again, especially considering the number of desktop users is getting smaller fast.
To me, it looks like Firefox is the last desktop browser still reminding of the era when the Internet was unrestricted.