Thank You for the answer!
I don’t understand what means, that NeoFinder is a duplicate of Finder in functionality? Does Finder provide an off-line storage content database? By the way, the part of NeoFinder, which is launched at startup is just a menu bar element, where You type the searched keywords and after that it launches the main application. So this tiny launcher can’t be intensive in any way. It’s such a simple thing, that if this makes an top specced iMac to start up so long, than Mac would be a strange platform. But I don’t think this is the cause. I can try turning of this timy menubar app, but I doubt it will affect any pre-login behavior. But it’s just my feeling.
As I wrote originally, startup time did slow down after updating to Big Sur, but it went worse later, so I can’t believe this change could be caused by apps, which were installed previously, like NeoFinder or Trusteer Report.
I understand what You wrote about the malware and it may be, that it was installed together with some third party app.
Sorry to ask You, I don’t feel comfortable not knowing what is Your relationship to Apple... are You an Apple representative? It would help me understand the background of Your statements. Thanks 🙏🏻