Techniques for speeding up snap (Ubuntu 26.04)

I have a vanilla Ubuntu 26.04 install on a brand new Dell Pro Max 16 (2026). Applications (ex: emacs, firefox) start very slowly. So slowly that the system complains about them not responding multiple times. They are better after running but the whole system feels sluggish, kind of like windows used to. I don't know if that's due to snap but it seems reasonably probable. Aside from installing packages outside of snap are there tricks or techniques for speeding things up?

Is there a way of placing a larger delay on the "not responding" notification? That would help a bit.

Edit/Update:

1. In answer to questions, my system has 32G of RAM and htop shows that it is only 50% used when my system is sluggish.

2. I get the timeout messages from (or in regards to) a variety of programs. For example, today Files was also doing it. But the more usual violators are firefox, emacs and zoom. Those also happen to be my most used applications, but...

3. The terminal doesn't seem sluggish, except to start it up (pop the window). Traditional command-line apps (gcc, find, grep, ls, etc) work fine.

4. My system's gl2mark score is 4231. Not great but not terrible.

5. I think my disk is working fine. I ran the benchmark from the Disks menu item in "Show Apps" and got an average read rate of 5.6 GB/s and an average access time of 0.04ms

Here are two ways to fix the issue of Snap lethargy:

1. To increase the wait time for an app to respond, increase the value of /org/gnome/mutter/check-alive-timeout from the default, 5,000 ms.
   • Enter gsettings set org.gnome.mutter check-alive-timeout 10000 in terminal for a 10 second (10,000 ms) delay, or
   • Edit /org/gnome/mutter/check-alive-timeout in dconf, an app with graphic user interface (GUI).
2. Replace Snap apps with a native Debian (.deb) package, with a flatpack installation, or with a Windows app the runs well in wine. Some examples:
   • The Snap version of Firefox can be replaced by the most recent stable version directly from Mozilla. That has the advantage of fetching the most recent update from Mozilla with normal update process, as well as opening far faster than the Snap version. It has the disadvantage of trusting Mozilla, as opposed to having Ubuntu vet and customize the app. The same can be done for Thunderbird and other apps.
   • Though there is a native Linux version of 7-Zip (well, p7zip), it is sadly out of date. The Windows app 7-Zip works perfectly well under wine.