Hello there on this fine Wednesday, my friend! It’s the delightful midpoint, a refreshing pause to recharge for the rest of the week. Ever wonder how your smartphone “knows” the exact time? It uses one specific time zone — which is it? You’ll find that little nugget of knowledge at the end of this newsletter.

✅ Hear me out: Hearing aids are not what they used to be. If you or someone you love is dealing with hearing loss, get a no-obligation hearing evaluation at Hear.com. You can even try it FREE for 45 days. Nice! Let’s get to it. — Kim

I heard a stat the other day I had to share: The average U.S. household spends $61 per month on streaming TV. Plus, you still need to pay for cable or another way to get the internet.

We’re in the midst of a streaming arms race, and prices are only going up.

• Last October, Apple, Amazon and Disney upped their streaming prices by $3 monthly.
• Netflix also nudged up its monthly basic plan rate by $2 last October.
• Just yesterday, Max raised the price of its cheapest streaming plan by $1 to $16.99 per month. Yeah, that’s with ads, people.

TL;DR: If you subscribe to only the basic plans for those services, your bills have gone up $12 per month in the past year. Wanna cut that down? I have seven streaming platforms that are completely f‑r‑e‑e free.

Pluto TV: Pluto’s owned by Paramount, so you get over 250 free channels, including news, sports and lifestyle options. It’s got a solid selection of old TV shows, plus some movies. It’s also compatible with most streaming devices and platforms, like Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast, Roku and PlayStation TV.

Tubi: Tubi gives you over 50,000 movies and TV shows, thanks to content from big studios like MGM, Lionsgate and Paramount. You can watch it on your smartphone, laptop and pretty much any other streaming or gaming console.

YouTube: You know it, you love it, but I bet you didn’t know you can find thousands of TV show episodes and even feature films on it for free (with ads). Not to mention, creators like MrBeast have full-length, high-production shows that give regular TV a run for its money. And you get my shows for free, too.

🍿 Speaking of … Here’s a list of the 100 best free flicks available on YouTube. (“Back to the Future,” anyone?)

The Roku Channel: Get thousands of free movies and TV shows, along with over 350 live channels, on any Roku streaming device, compatible Samsung smart TVs or Amazon Fire TVs, or the Roku app. The content is constantly updated, and they have some surprisingly solid originals, too, like "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story" and "The Great American Baking Show.”

Crackle: If British TV is your jam, Crackle might be your best bet. It has a lot of BBC shows, like the sitcom “Peep Show” and comedy-drama series “Shameless,” plus a big library of movies and classic TV series, including "The Dick Van Dyke Show." The downside? Long ads before and during programming. Bollocks …

Freevee: Freevee is Amazon’s free arm, so you’ll need an Amazon Prime account for this one. But once you’re in, it has thousands of free movies and TV episodes with fewer ads than network TV. It also has some excellent original content, like “Jury Duty,” which was nominated for an Emmy last year and is wet-your-pants funny.

Kanopy: This one’s my ringer. Kanopy lets you watch thousands of films completely ad-free using your public library card. They have a great selection of classic, critically acclaimed and foreign films. Stream ‘em on your phone, tablet or almost any other TV streaming device, including Apple TV, Roku and Chromecast.

I can practically hear your streaming bills dropping …

😂 Let me tell you, I’ve been trying in vain to stream “Hamlet,” but I can’t remember if it’s Tubi or not Tubi! (Oh, that was so good, it hurt!)

🦸 Hey, I bet you know one person who would like to know about free streaming services. Hit the share button below and be a hero!

Weird fact about me: I find cleaning relaxing. I especially love getting to those spots we all ignore for way too long. It’s OK — there are products that make it easy!

• News flash: Espresso machines need to be descaled. Don’t let your pricey investment break down.
• Use a Keurig, Ninja or other pod coffee machine? These tabs clean out the gunk so your coffee is perfect every morning.
• When’s the last time you cleaned your dishwasher? Pop a tab in and run a cycle. Easy‑peasy.
• Next up, the garbage disposal. I know you’ve been ignoring that one, and it stinks.
• While you’re at it, give the spa or hot tub a good cleaning, too.
• I’m so over laundry pods and heavy detergent. I switched to laundry sheets. So easy!

🚨 TikTok malware in your DMs: Celebs like Paris Hilton and big brands like CNN are getting hacked on TikTok — no clicks needed! Just opening a DM lets the malware sneak right in (paywall link). The strange part? The infected accounts haven't posted anything fishy yet.

Yup, another breach: We’re just learning that big-time debt-collection agency FBCS got hit hard by a data breach on Valentine’s Day. Hackers grabbed names, birth dates, Social Security numbers and medical records of over 3.2 million folks. Watch your credit report.

Tomfoolery: Don’t waste your time falling for “Olympics Has Fallen,” a fake documentary narrated by a phony Tom Cruise. It’s actually Russian disinformation about the Paris Olympics, loaded with AI tricks and a Netflix soundalike intro. Creative, but there are tells throughout, with “Tom” using non-American lingo like “hockey match" instead of “hockey game.”

He chose the psycho path: A 33-year-old Pennsylvania man was busted for burglary and stalking a woman he met online. After she dumped and blocked him, he went full creep, shutting off her power, messing with her internet and slapping a GPS tracker under her car. Cops arrested him, and he's now being held on a $2 million bail. It’s got to be so scary dating now.

Keep your eyes peeled: Southern Californian residents got a creepy surprise: A camera, disguised with camouflage tape and leaves, spying on a whole street. Scary setup, right? Cops think it’s the work of South American theft rings scouting for their next break-in. Check your yard.

🦅 Nature unfiltered: Thousands of folks just witnessed three eaglets lose their nest in an Iowa storm, leaving the parent eagles shocked as they returned with fish. It’s scenes like these that keep viewers glued to live nature cams offering brutal, unedited glimpses into nature’s raw reality. Curious? Check out Explore.org.

I like big bots and I cannot lie: This is strange. The first-ever "Miss AI" beauty pageant unveiled its 10 finalists from a pool of 1,500 AI-generated models. Judges (both human and droid) choose contenders like Morocco’s Kenza Layli and Europe’s Anne Kerdi. There’s $20,000 on the line. Click here to see who else is in the running. I’m surprised by how normal the women look.

🚚 If only Red Bull gave you wings: An 18-wheeler loaded with Red Bull got stuck on a muddy mountain road after the driver followed Google Maps' instructions to Utah. Reminder: Google Maps is optimized for cars. Giant trucks need special navigation software that considers their dimensions and cargo size. For that, Garmin is a solid pick.

MrBeast primer: I mentioned him in today’s top story. If you don’t know much about him, check out this short video, where Andrew tells me about his start. Super interesting!

Goodnight, moon: Have an Echo? Alexa can help you drift off to sleep. Say something like, “Alexa, play rain sounds” (or whatever your favorite soothing sounds are, whether it’s waves or ambient noise), then say, “Alexa, set a sleep timer for one hour.” That way, the audio will shut off once you’re asleep.

Copy that: In ChatGPT, you don’t want to select all the text with your mouse and copy and paste that way. You’ll get all the funky formatting. At the bottom of the answer is a button that looks like two overlapping squares. Click that to copy a clean version.

It just works better: If you live in a home larger than 2,000 square feet or have a lot of devices, mesh networks are your Wi‑Fi's secret sauce. Instead of a single router struggling to send a signal to every nook and cranny, you've got multiple "nodes" working like a tag team.

Memorize this: On a PC, hit Alt + Tab. On Mac, it’s Cmd + Tab. Keep hitting Tab while holding down Alt or Cmd to switch between your open applications. It’ll make you feel like a total pro.

Is it spam? Reader Ron S. in Gilbert, Arizona, dropped me a note with a reminder about a super-helpful site if you’re worried a link is suspicious. Google analyzes billions of URLs every day and adds spammy ones to a list. Paste a link in here to see if it’s been flagged. Thanks, Ron!

Imagine this: You’re in a crowded restaurant with friends, family, colleagues — take your pick. There’s music playing and people talking all around you. It’s not easy to hear the conversation. What do you do?

Some options: You can lean in, read lips, ask for repeats or — hear me out — you could give a tiny, new hearing aid a try. Hear.com’s bestselling device makes following the conversation easy, even with all that annoying background noise. And the clarity is flawless.

Join the 350,000 happy customers who aren’t struggling to keep up anymore.

I took this pic to remember the moment. My husband, Barry, lost the remote, and I said, “Honey, this isn’t even remotely funny,” to which he replied, “Oh, you really know how to push my buttons!” Good news: I found the remote.

The answer: Smartphones connect to atomic clock servers synchronized to the international standard of Greenwich Mean Time, or GMT. I once toured the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, U.K. As a geek, I was totally enthralled with the place. You should see it someday, too!

⏱️ I’ve put a lot of thought into it, and 6:30 is the best time on a clock, hands down.

Before you go: Stop by Hear.com if you’ve been dealing with hearing loss. It’s fast, easy and more affordable than you think. Best of all, you can try out a hearing aid for 45 days to make sure it’s right for you.

See you back here tomorrow with an important warning about AM radio you can’t afford to miss. — Kim