Install applications without using snap help

I need a way of installing programs that are provided in snaps without using snap. Snap doesn’t work properly with nvidia cards because of the way the proprietary nvidia drivers handle some libraries. The bug was recently downgraded so it doesn’t look likely it’ll be fixed any time soon.

Does anyone know of a method to download a snap package and extract the files to install it manually? I don’t understand why some websites chose to only offer their applications through snap when there are so many other alternatives that work with nvidia graphics cards.

unsquashfs -d <target-dir> your-snap-file_rev_arch.snap extracts the snap’s contents to a directory of your choice, but depending on the snapped software, that won’t get you very far.

EDIT:
If you want to use everything inside the snap as-is, see ogra’s answer instead. Unpacking only helps if you need to extract some of the files.

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thank you. Now I am wondering, how do I download a snap package without actually having snap on my computer?

use the store api via curl:

note though that you really should not unpack the squashfs images but bind mount them instead, like snapd does … unpacking will waste immense amounts of disk space for no benefit … note also that you will likely have to write at least half a snapd implementation to get some usable runtime environment to actually properly execute stuff even in an unconfined manner …

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It sounds like it’s going to be difficult but I’m not really left with much choice unless I want to change graphics card or use the nouveau drivers. thanks for the help