Turning a rigidbody controller into a character controller (almost)

Hi, in my game I am using a rididbody controller instead of a character controller for some reasons, the thing is that the way a rigidbody contrller interacts with other objects is completily different, I prefer my rigidbody controller compared to my character controller, but at the same time I feel that the rigidbody controller has too much physics in it, for example it bounces alot when it goes against objects, I want it to basically have no interaction with other objects, but still be a rigidbody, anyone can tell me a good way to make a rigidbody kinda physicless and not so bouncy (I already have a custom physic material that has everything set to 0, even friction, maybe I should tune up the friction a little bit, but that way sometimes it gets like too slow when colliding with walls)

I think it would be better if you kept it as a rigidbody and made it kinematic, so that other objects interact with it, but the character controller overrides the physics. How do you move the character? By applying force?

You can also see how they did it in many Unity examples (by Unity themselves), as most of their characters are rigidbodies (even in the 2d example).