Ever since upgrading to Catalina, I have had NOTHING BUT PROBLEMS! It has wreaked havoc on every aspect of my computer. I have even seriously think having Apple help me navigate backward to Mojave. Let Apple fix Catalina before I return to it.

Your shouting, upper-case missive, "nothing but problems" does not describe any problem that you have encountered, and therefore deprives those that may be able to help of that factual opportunity. We need details in order to help.

Writing an effective Apple Support Communities question

Apple is not here, we are fellow users, and we cannot speculate what future updates to Catalina entail.

If you performed a Time Machine backup of Mojave before upgrading to Catalina, then your retreat could be as simple as booting into Recovery (⌘+R) and selecting Restore from Time Machine Backup from the menu. That would reformat the Catalina drive, and repave it with Mojave, applications, and user data — just as you left it before the Catalina upgrade.

As there are no viruses on macOS, any such anti-virus and so-called security system is pointless, and are known to badly interact with the built-in security in the operating system, impact other applications behavior, and in general slow the Mac performance. I recommend that you entirely remove Webroot, any other anti-virus product, and any so-called Mac cleaning applications.

I recommend that you download and install the trusted EtreCheck, give it full disk access (for a complete report), and copy/paste the output into the additional text tool in the bottom toolbar. None of your personal information will be shown in the report, and it will list what is contributing to your Catalina issues.

Once we see this report, we can make other recommendations for your Mac.

From someone who made a similar mistake in using Webroot, on my 2015 MacBook Pro, I can tell you that is likely where a lot of your problems may be coming from. I too had issues removing it and had to either contact their support team to remove it or I found something on their support site to help me uninstall it. Once I did that though, things were much smoother and I didn't seem to have any issues. Not sure which model you have but if the version of Webroot you are using is 32 bit then that would be a whole new headache since Catalina only supports 64 bit apps. I'd try reaching out to Webroot or checking their web portal to see if you can find out how to remove it. The last option would be to do a factory reset, if you have a Time Machine backup then just pick the files and apps you want to move back over, leave Webroot out of it and go from there.

Post your Etrecheck report here using the Additional Text button:

If it's 3rd party software that's causing the runaway problem reinstalling the system and migrating over your user files might just repopulate the problem software. Let's see if there's anything in the report that is suspicious.

Have you tried using Activity Monitor to kill the runaway process, reboot and see if it comes back?

If you feel you might have inadvertantly installed some adware the free version of Malwarebytes is an excellent and safe app to remove it. It, like Etrecheck, was developed by a long time and respected contributor to these forums.

I don't intend to detract from the others' replies to your three questions, but since you asked I'll augment them.

1. Not only is adware easily recognized and avoided, should you nevertheless be deceived into installing it, it's easily removed without having to download or install anything more. The essential steps involve examining the contents of three folders that contain files that are loaded whenever you start or log in to your Mac. I have had complete and total success with that method despite the limitations of using this site with its inherent back-and-forth questions and answers, even with neophyte users. If they follow along, more experienced users will easily catch on and do it themselves without even having to ask for help.
2. Yes, EtreCheck is capable of identifying a wide variety of malware, in addition to performing many other useful tasks. In the past helpers would need to ask a dozen or more questions that EtreCheck answers already. In my dreams it would be a prerequisite for posting questions on this site, but it's not reasonable to expect people in need of help would even know about it. It's a simple tool that does what it needs to do, makes a few suggestions, and then gets out of the way. If I could do a better job I would. In fact I was already working on something like it, but EtreCheck's author released his program before I finished mine, saving me a lot of work. I love when that happens 😀
3. Most emphatically NO. Websites in and of themselves can certainly result in Safari misbehaving, such as spawning multiple windows or tabs as though it's out of control, but the fix is simple even if you have to force Safari to quit and clear recent browsing history. Those functions, in addition to identifying known fraudulent websites and warning you about them before you load a page (among other functions) are built into it. Some websites go so far as to automatically initiate a download that gets deposited in your Downloads folder, but once again that downloaded file can do exactly nothing until you deliberately open and attempt to install it, at which point macOS's own built-in protections intervene and inform you of what you're asking it to do. Known malware is automatically blocked. Software downloaded from untrusted sources is identified as exactly that, offering you the opportunity to open the website from which it arose, so that you can make an informed decision regarding whether or not you are willing to proceed with its installation. Even then, macOS doesn't stop there—it simply will not allow itself to become maliciously altered, and known malicious software that somehow manages to get past that roadblock is automatically removed. Apple periodically issues security updates that incorporate those definitions as they are identified, which is another reason you should keep your Mac up to date.
4. No. Same principles apply. However, please allow me to expand upon an exploit that is disturbingly common, successful, and growing in popularity: Apple ID theft. It has been successfully leveraged to lock hapless victims out of their Macs. Fortunately Apple offers a simple and highly effective defense against that threat, which I'll describe later.

By far the most prevalent threat you must protect yourself against is phishing. It can take a variety of forms but its purpose is to deceive you into voluntarily disclosing your Apple ID credentials. Those credentials are the keys to your digital kingdom and need to be safeguarded just as you would a wallet or purse or anything else of value. Read Security and your Apple ID - Apple Support. Apple doesn't take a heavy hand with their Support documents in that they don't highlight important concepts with a lot of bold face text or other garishness, but perhaps they should. Every word of that document is important. Read it and appreciate the importance of keeping your Apple ID credentials secure.

Here is an example of a phishing attempt I received just last week:

I'm pretty sure I didn't purchase anything from Netflix, and certainly don't use Google Chrome. It must be a mistake, right? So my first reaction is that I should click the "Cancel and Manage Purchases" link. Isn't that what anyone would do? Of course.

Let's go ahead and click that link. What happens then is that Safari opens with a one hundred percent perfect rendition of Apple's "Manage your Apple ID" webpage. It's beautiful. A work of art. Its Apple ID and password fields are right there ready to be filled in.

Except that it's not from Apple.

If I supplied my real Apple ID and password to that website its job is done—your credentials are already halfway around the globe, being sold to the highest bidder on the dark web. Mission accomplished.

But wait, it gets better! The webpage that appears next wants even more personal information, to be continued in the next post.

What PROBLEMS? What needs to be fixed? Many of us ran the beta version of Catalina for about a year before it was released to the public in debugging it. I've had some minor issues with Photos and how it works but the system has been rock solid for me.

Do what VikingOSX suggested and post back with a detailed description of your issues so we can try to figure out the root of the problems.

“Security software” for Windows PC are garbage for MacOS. Like others said, MacOS don’t need “third party” anti-virus apps, make things worst.

The site does allow the report to be posted in its entirety if you use the Additional Text button. This User Tip shows how: How to use the Add Text Feature When Posting Large Amounts of Text, i.e. an Etrecheck Report- Apple Community

charlenefromwinchester wrote:

Are Launch Daemons something to be removed?

2. Are Use Launch Agents something to remove?

Not all of them. Follow Kurt Lang's instructions regarding EtreCheck, here:

Add it to Full Disk Access under System Preferences > Security & Privacy, then run it again and post the new report.

Launch Agents and Launch Daemons associated with "McAfee", "Webroot", and other sordid junk needs to be removed but it needs to be positively identified first. Don't remove anything without providing that information.

What is "Free RAM"

Memory not already allocated or reserved for active processes is released and made available to the system. It's normal for the system to use all or nearly all available resources including memory, so the results you're seeing are normal.

It's very easy to determine if your Mac's performance is being limited by available memory. Please read Use Activity Monitor on your Mac - Apple Support. If the "Memory Pressure" graph is frequently "red" your Mac will benefit from additional memory. If not, it won't. It's that simple.

At the time that report was generated your Mac was performing well within that hardware limitation.