For gnome-x-xx, see this post, and for core loop devices, see this. They are preinstalled backends for to-be-installed snap apps (but the only snap app you seem to have is snap-store).
If you don't want to use snaps, it is safe to remove them. If you want to continue using snaps, let snapd decide what to keep, and don't mess with it.
To answer the last part of your question, in general, snaps affect the performance and startup time of your system noticeably unless you have a fast hard drive or an SSD. So, unless you really need a particular app which is not available without snap, get rid of snapd. Also, it may save you a few gigabytes of hard drive space.
From your snap list
, it seems that the only application you are using is snap-store
, which is the app store to install other snaps (so, if you don't use snaps, it is not necessary).
About your installed snaps - The core18/20/22
packages are like base Ubuntu images which snap apps utilize, the gnome*
packages are GNOME backends for snap apps, and gtk-common-themes
provide common GTK themes for snap apps. You don't need any of them if you don't intend to use snap apps, since apt versions of GTK theme and a version of GNOME is preinstalled in Ubuntu. Therefore, you don't need to replace them with anything.
Once snap store is gone, you may want to install gnome-software
as a graphical package manager.
sudo apt install gnome-software --no-install-recommends
The --no-install-recommends
ensures that it will not automatically pull the snap plugin.
By default, gnome software handles apt/deb packages. It can also handle snap and flatpak packages via the plugins gnome-software-plugin-snap
and gnome-software-plugin-flatpak
.