can you tell me what this software is on my MacBook Pro M1?

+1 on Grant's reply. Here is more compelling evidence against SurfShark:

2023-10-19 15:38:46 com.surfshark.vpnclient.macos.direct.PacketTunnel-WireGuard - Crash (31 times)

Details:

libdispatch.dylib: BUG IN CLIENT OF LIBDISPATCH: dispatch_sync called

on queue already owned by current thread

31 crashes logged in 30 days? Not a record, but definitely in the top 10 of crash logs here. When I worked in law enforcement, we called that a "clue." 😉

Seriously, if there are other things afoot, they are being masked by surfshark and its hard to fully diagnose issues when that happens.

d_Alexander wrote:

So I have been experiencing kernel panics and slower speeds and doing all the investigating I can to try to self diagnose and or fix the problem .. then I go to install the most recent update (14.1) which continues to fail even after using disk utility and booting in safe mode.. I suppose recovery mode will be my next step there but .. while perusing my system info more or less just seeing what all there is to see about what is "under the hood" I noticed an odd 3rd party software which there doesn't appear to be anything mentioned when google searching about it. The software name is "Use":

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/8461392b-6ed8-47d7-8f21-b6765b5ea856

maybe its innocuous and nothing to be concerned with but I'm not sure and there's many of you very smart Mac savvy people to whom I am grateful for .. I appreciate that some of you take the time to help those of us who are trying to learn but haven't yet reached your levels of knowledge/wisdom.. honestly some of you should be getting paid by apple for the help you dish out and so thank you.

Learn what to do if your computer restarts or shuts down unexpectedly, or you get a message that your computer restarted or shut down because of a problem.

If your Mac spontaneously restarts or displays a ... - Apple Support

If your Mac restarted because of a problem - Apple Support

Kernel Panics are predominately caused by hardware faults or faulty third-party kernel extensions.

if you are in doubt—

You can get a good look at your User/System config. and reveal conflicts or issues, you can download/run this trusted utility https://etrecheck.com

If you need help interpreting the report you can post it here in its entirety in the "Additional Text" box in the editing toolbar below, in your reply.

By far the easiest way to cause poor performance, instability, overheating and crashing is to install ANY third-party speeder-uppers, Cleaners, Optimizers, or Virus scanners. or a VPN that you installed yourself.

The idea that a third party, with no special knowledge of the inner workings of MacOS, can somehow find a simple way to protect your computer — that is not already being done by MacOS itself — suggests that the MacOS developers are somehow "holding out on you". That is absurd.

You should remove any and all (other than Apple built-in) virus scanners, speeder uppers, optimizers, cleaners, App deleters or VPN packages you installed yourself, or anything of that ilk.

Third-party file Sync-ers such as DropBox, BackBlaze, OneDrive, or GoogleDrive can ruin performance, but are not inherently dangerous.

Effective defenses against malware and ot… - Apple Community

Effective defenses against malware and ot… - Apple Community

such as this:

System Extensions:

    [Running] Surfshark Antivirus - version 4.11.2 (SURFSHARK LTD - 2023-10-08)

        Application: /Applications/Surfshark.app - version 4.11.2 (SURFSHARK LTD - 2023-10-08)

        Description: System Extension enables Surfshark app to provide antivirus features.

    [Running] Surfshark. WireGuard - version 4.11.2 (SURFSHARK LTD - 2023-10-08)

        Application: /Applications/Surfshark.app - version 4.11.2 (SURFSHARK LTD - 2023-10-08)

        Description: System Extension enables Surfshark app to connect using WireGuard protocol.