On Windows and Mac I make application shortcuts directly in Chrome. These use the same amount of resources as an ordinary tab, but appear just like a desktop application. I have dock/taskbar icons for Gmail, calendar, YouTube music, ect.
I don't use Linux, but given that Edge also supports this, I suspect that you can do this with Chromium.
I'm not on my computer, but the steps are to hit the hamburger menu, select create shortcut, and then select the checkbox. The words vary, but it's usually something like "run in separate window" or "run as application."
I do this for a lot of stuff (probably a dozen different apps, on Windows, Linux, macOS, and Android), but there are apps that wouldn't be able to rely on this. VSCode, for example, wouldn't have good enough system access to work.
However, the are some apps that could do this, but have hidden some of their features in the Election version. E.g. it's frustrating that Slack can't have multiple groups in a single browser tab.
The added benifit and drawback here is that you keep the app in the browser sandbox. For me that is what I want 95% of the time anyways. But for apps that really benifit from accessing native resources with no permission requests it is a downside.
I don't use Linux, but given that Edge also supports this, I suspect that you can do this with Chromium.
I'm not on my computer, but the steps are to hit the hamburger menu, select create shortcut, and then select the checkbox. The words vary, but it's usually something like "run in separate window" or "run as application."