It’s not just Prime Video: Max shows 50% more ads now
When HBO Max launched its ad-supported plan in 2021, it promised no more than four minutes of ads per hour. Now, it’s quietly backtracked. A support page for Max’s Basic with Ads plan says to…
Jared Newman
Disney’s free streaming ‘perks’ are just insulting
Disney is in a bind. The company is struggling to keep its streaming subscriber numbers up after years of price hikes, but it also wants to spend less money producing new content that might draw…
Not just passwords: 8 other details to save in your password manager
Some of the best reasons to use a password manager don’t involve passwords at all. Think of a password manager not just as a tool for storing your login credentials, but as a secure and searchable…
Spectrum’s ‘free’ streaming services aren’t worth the cost of cable
Spectrum would like you to believe that it’s actually competing with cord-cutting now. While the largest cable provider in the U.S. hasn’t lowered prices, it has been over the past year bundling popular streaming services…
I switched my $1,000 desktop for a $300 mini PC. I regret nothing
Earlier this year, I impulse-bought a tiny, inexpensive desktop PC for research purposes. I didn’t expect it to change my entire computing setup. But here I am now, using the $300 Beelink SER5 Mini PC as my…
ESPN’s new streaming service is a ripoff—and that’s the point
Last week, ESPN put a price tag on the standalone streaming service it’s launching in the fall, and it’s not cheap. ESPN’s streaming service will cost $30 per month, with an option to bundle Hulu…
Roku is doing what most of its rivals avoid
Roku is spending $185 million to get into a business that most other streaming platforms have avoided. In early May, the company announced that it will acquire Frndly TV, the cheapest of all the live…
Do HBO’s owners have any actual idea what they’re doing with Max?
Max is changing its name back to HBO Max, and much like The Joker in one of Warner’s DC Universe films, I can’t stop laughing. Three years have passed since the mega-merger that birthed Warner…
Roku is doing what most of its rivals won’t
Roku is spending $185 million to get into a business that most other streaming platforms have avoided. In early May, the company announced that it will acquire Frndly TV, the cheapest of all the live…
Is Windows antivirus software still necessary in 2025?
For years, I’ve assumed that most people don’t need third-party antivirus tools and have cheerily passed this suggestion along to others. After all, Microsoft’s Windows Security suite (also known as Windows Defender or Microsoft Defender)…