Chromium is not packaged using debs in Ubuntu. Firefox is the default supported browser, as it has been for many years, and that works perfectly fine as a deb.
The reason the Chromium deb package pulls in a snap is so that users upgrading from 18.04 or 19.10 continue to get a working Chromium. If you have disabled snaps, then apt will not pull in the Chromium snap.
> That is absolutely forcing snap on people, since Chromium was a standard .dep package in the previous release.
It really isn't. The default web browser works fine and isn't a snap. Chromium has never been installed by default on Ubuntu.
A lot of people prefer using Chromium. In previous versions, it was a standard .deb package.
The subterfuge pulled by Canonical is that it now looks like a standard .deb package, but all it does is pull in the snap package, with all the attendant mounts, unmovable snap folder in $HOME, and other snap-related issues that standard .deb packages don't have.
If you disable snaps, you cannot install Chromium on 20.04, unless you use an outdated third-party repo.
The reason the Chromium deb package pulls in a snap is so that users upgrading from 18.04 or 19.10 continue to get a working Chromium. If you have disabled snaps, then apt will not pull in the Chromium snap.
> That is absolutely forcing snap on people, since Chromium was a standard .dep package in the previous release.
It really isn't. The default web browser works fine and isn't a snap. Chromium has never been installed by default on Ubuntu.