“Kim, how is EndpointLock different from a VPN?” A VPN encrypts your internet connection and hides your web activity. EndpointLock encrypts your keystrokes so no one can copy what you type. It’s a must for me. Hit this link for 10% off.
How to fix your high streaming bills
The other day on my national radio show, I mentioned that the average American drops $110 a month on streaming services. Add another $80+ for a solid internet connection, and suddenly old-school cable doesn’t look so bad.
My inbox lit up with folks asking, “Kim, how can I lower my streaming bills?” I’m willing to bet you’re paying for stuff you’re not even watching. Let’s fix that.
🕵️ Start with an audit
So, how many streaming services are you paying for right now? Netflix? Hulu? Disney+? Max? Peacock? Oh, throw in Prime Video because you have Amazon Prime. Before you know it, you’re spending more than you ever did on cable.
Step 1: Pull up your bank or credit card statement. Not all the charges will be obvious. Look for:
- Google, Apple and Amazon auto renewals
- Obvious ones like Hulu or Paramount+
Pro tip: I use Rocket Money* to do this for me. It scans your accounts, flags subscriptions and cancels the ones you forgot about. So easy.
Step 2: Open your phone or smart TV to check which apps you actually use. If it’s been more than a month since you watched, unsubscribe. You can always rejoin later. Most don’t even erase your watch history.
Do what I do and rotate services. If you’re watching a Netflix series now, cancel the rest. Come back later when your binge list is long enough to justify the cost.
📺 Go cheap
Why pay when there are so many free, legit options with great content? There are ads, but free is free!
- Tubi: Tons of movies, including classics, thrillers and ’90s gems like Happy Gilmore
- Pluto TV: Popular option for news and sitcoms
- The Roku Channel: Slick interface, free movies and Roku Originals
- MUBI: Hidden gem for indie films and documentaries
- Freevee from Amazon: Solid shows, including Bosch: Legacy and The Good Wife
We may earn a commission from purchases, but our recommendations are always objective.
Creepy data grab and how to make it stop
This is the kind of thing that makes you wish flip phones were still a thing. The world has moved from marketing to digital profiling. We are being tracked like never before.
Advertising giant Publicis Groupe just released a video bragging that its CoreAI platform tracks a staggering 91% of all adult internet users. Yes, that probably includes you, me and everyone we know.
Dangerous free Wi-Fi
Tempted to pop on the free public internet? Take my advice: Don’t do it.
🦅 Help name these chicks: Jackie and Shadow are the internet’s favorite eagle couple. Over a million fans watched their three eggs hatch on a 24/7 nest cam in California’s Big Bear Valley. The oldest chick passed away after a storm on March 13, but the other two are doing well. Help name them by donating at least $5 by Friday. Speaking of … Why can’t you breed an eel with an eagle? It’s Eeleagle. (Ouch.)
🌐 Need a backup for your internet? Check out Starlink’s new $10 monthly plan for existing subscribers. It’s part of the Roam tier, so you can use it anywhere in the world. Sounds good, right? Well, here’s the catch: It’s capped at 10GB. Blow past that, and you’re paying $2 per extra gig. Ouch.
5 cool tricks for your router
You never hear anyone say, “This router is amazing. It changed my life!” It’s sad because that little guy controls your entire home’s internet. If yours has a USB port (check the back!), you can unlock some surprisingly useful features. You’re gonna love this.
Selling your car? Do this first
© Iuliia Lisitsyna | Dreamstime.com
New cars are computers on wheels, tracking just as much about you as your phone does. Before you sell your car or return a lease, you need to take the time to wipe all that data.
Otherwise, you’re handing over a digital diary of your life to anyone who knows where to look. Your car tracks where you’ve been, how fast you got there, your contacts and text messages and what radio stations you listen to most. Don’t let that info go along for the ride!
🌐 Protecting undersea internet cables: I’m not sure if you know that they carry 95% of the world’s internet traffic and are a known target for sabotage. Now, there’s new tech that can “listen” for vibrations in the cable’s light signals — like if a diver touches it or a ship drags an anchor too close.
🌐 Starlink who? Alphabet’s photonic chip beams 10-gig internet through the air using light beams. Yes, really. It could bring high-speed connections to remote areas (without messy fiber cables) starting this year. It has more bandwidth than a Starlink antenna and costs less. Your move, Elon.
Pranking scammers with Kitboga
We team up with Kitboga, the internet’s favorite scambaiter, to waste scammers’ time and cause chaos. He walks us through his process, using fake personas and clever tricks to throw them off. He even pretends to be Kim’s husband just to mess with them. Plus, a legit AI job that pays $65 an hour with no degree needed.
I spent a day on the Dark Web [Part 1]
Kim Komando
When I say Dark Web, what comes to mind? A hacker in a hoodie? Digital drug deals and hitmen for hire? Usually what our imagination cooks up is a lot more dramatic than reality. But when it comes to the Dark Web, not so much.
31,000 miles
The longest undersea cable Meta wants to build. If you wrapped it around the equator, you’d have 6,000 miles left over. It’ll speed up the internet, but Meta’s main goal is boosting their AI capabilities.
Delete these snoopy Chrome browser extensions
Let’s start with the basics. Chrome extensions add extra features not built into Chrome, like ad blocking, translations and one-click full-page screenshots.
Just like apps on your phone, extensions request permissions to track what you do, see and share online. But many extensions get far more access than they need and collect data way beyond their intended purpose. And that’s when you’re at risk of identity theft, scams and data harvesting.
2.7 billion records leaked: A Communist China company that sells smart hydroponics and grow lights proved what I’ve been saying for years. Security in Internet of Things (IoT) devices is a joke. You already know about the massive breach if you’re on my Current Alerts list. Read the full story for the best steps to protect your home network.
⚡ Pulling the plug, literally: Wow, this is a wild one. Thailand just cut electricity to parts of Myanmar that house billion-dollar scam operations. There are shady compounds where people are forced to run schemes like romance and pig-butchering scams for little or no money. It won’t do much to lower the number of scammers, sadly. Crime bosses are already switching to diesel generators for power and Elon Musk’s Starlink for the internet.
You're on camera — all the time
The average person likely gets recorded 400 to 500 times a week. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison says it’s only going to get worse. Plus, Google AI used in cyberattacks, UnitedHealthcare hack aftermath, and is the dead internet theory real?
“Kim, how is EndpointLock different from a VPN?” Lots of you smarties asked! A VPN encrypts your internet connection and hides your web activity. EndpointLock encrypts your keystrokes so no one can copy what you type. It’s a must for me. Hit this link for 10% off.
🤖 Finders keepers: OpenAI says DeepSeek, the impressive AI model out of China, just copied its work. The company is pointing to a technique called distillation, where developers extract data from larger, more advanced models to train their own, saving hundreds of millions of dollars in dev costs. The big ol’ irony? OpenAI built its model by scraping the entire internet without consent. Pot, meet kettle.