🚨 Location off? They still know

🤯 WOW! Holiday flights and gift lists are getting priced this month, and every site doing so knows what town you’re sitting in. You turned off Location Services. Didn’t matter. Your IP address hands over your city on every click, with no permission asked and no switch to stop it.

The Short Version: Before you book or buy, kill precise location, block browser location requests, clear the ZIPs you saved years ago, then deal with the IP underneath it all. Steps below.

📖 Read time: 2 minutes

Timely question, Allison. I priced the same December flight twice this week, once at the studio and once at home. Two different numbers, same seat. Holiday flights, the gift list, the hotel booking. Every one of those sites wants to know where you’re sitting. Not out of curiosity.

Retailers price by market. Same sweater, same website, different number in Scottsdale than in Scranton. NordVPN’s researchers found that what an American pays online shifts with location and browsing history.

How do businesses know even when you have your location switched off?

Your IP address does the heavy lifting. It maps to a city the way a return address maps to a neighborhood. No permission asked. No toggle to flip.

Then the small tells stack: time zone, language, screen size, fonts. Meaningless alone, damning together.

There’s also what you handed over. The ZIP typed for shipping. The “my store” you picked in 2019. Those never expire.

Three moves before you book.

Route your connection somewhere else, so your IP stops announcing you on every click. That’s what a VPN does, and I use NordVPN, the official VPN of my show.

✅ Get up to 76% off, from $3.37 a month, plus 4 extra months.*

The airline knows my ZIP code, my browser and my screen size. Still can’t find my luggage. Go figure.

🎯 Send this to someone who is buying gifts and booking holiday flights this year.

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🔓 Private speed test: This is worth a text in your family group chat. Never hand an unlocked phone to a technician. Police say a GFiber installer in Irvine, Calif., said he needed a customer’s phone to test network speed, then texted her private explicit videos to his own number. He was later arrested. That’s a routine home appointment turning predatory in seconds. Lock the phone, stay beside it, and if anyone needs a speed test, make them explain why your device is necessary.

On a roll: Great news, you can now have a Costco-sized wall of toilet paper delivered after work without paying the club fee. Costco and Uber Eats now offer same-day warehouse delivery in 47 states to members and non-members alike, including bulk groceries and household staples. Expect to pay Uber its fees, though. You keep the bargain-sized packages and outsource the part requiring trunk Tetris.

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Four eyes, four figures: So, Snap is selling social awkwardness for $2,195, plus whatever Verizon charges to keep it connected. The Specs launch later this year with augmented-reality displays, an AI assistant, and about four hours of mixed battery use. A $2,395 model includes a cellular case. CEO Evan Spiegel says strangers won’t mistake them for hidden cameras because the chunky temples and iridescent lenses are visible from far away. Nothing says “not a hidden camera” like a price tag you can see from space.

🚽 Bathroom speed run: New York City’s new Throne robotoilets give you 10 minutes before a speaker warns you and the door automatically opens. Yep, countdown to being exposed mid-business. Free, and you unlock one by text or special card. Throne monitors usage and cleanliness remotely via sensors (no cameras). Finally, a Throne with term limits. (Good one, I know!)

💳 The $118,000 ad bill: This will make you want to check every saved card in your house. A 9-year-old used his dad’s company credit card to promote his Minecraft and Roblox videos on YouTube, turning one planned $20 ad into $118,000 of campaigns over three weeks. His reasoning was painfully kid-perfect: he wanted “more money, more views.” The Google account had no spending limit or parental controls. If your child can reach a saved card, fix that today. Curiosity shouldn’t bankrupt you.

More than one lithium battery fire a week happened on U.S. flights this year. Which is why you should never check your power bank on a flight. It can explode. We break down the tips to keep you safe.

▶️ Airlines logged 56 lithium battery fires →

⚡️ 3-second tech genius: No plans this weekend? Let Google Maps do a little scouting. Search “free things to do” for nearby options like parks and museums. You don’t need an exact place name, just something you like doing. Works for cravings, too. 🤤 Type “spicy wings” and check the local spots, ratings and reviews. There, you’ve contributed more to the group chat than “I’m easy.” 

🎧 My go-to earbuds: I’ve tested more audio gear than I can count, and I keep coming back to Raycon’s Everyday Earbuds. Comfortable fit, great sound, simple to use. Raycon is offering up to 20% off sitewide right now. Perfect for gifting or upgrading.* 

iPadOS 27 added bigger widgets: Find a spot on your Home Screen with some space, press and hold, then tap Add Widget in the top-left corner. Try Photos first. It’s roughly double the previous size. But my personal favorite? Calendar. You can see so much more of your week without opening the app. Fewer taps to find out you’re busy.

📺 Netflix can come on holiday: That household restriction doesn’t mean your shows have to stay home. Sign into Netflix on the TV where you’re staying, then choose I’m traveling or Watch Temporarily. Request a one-time code and enter it on the TV. Access is temporary, so you may need to verify again after a few days. All that traveling just to watch the same show in a different bed. 

Make your Start menu useful: Windows lets you pin things like Downloads, Documents, Settings and your Personal Folder right next to the Power button. Go to Settings > Personalization > Start > Folders, then switch on the ones you want. They’re one click away instead of buried in File Explorer. This should already be on. 

🖥️ See how your PC’s holding up: Cinebench is a free tool that puts your processor through a serious workout by pushing it to 100% during a 3D render. You’ll get a score at the end, and if things crash, overheat or get painfully slow, that’s a red flag. Here are my laptop recs if it looks like upgrade time.

Be on the show! I read every note from you. Yes, even on weekends. Tell me what’s on your mind. 

Sending something sensitive on Gmail? There’s a setting built right in that almost nobody uses. Pick an expiration date, and your message vanishes from the recipient’s inbox when time’s up.

Listen on Komando.com →

🎧 Or search “Komando” wherever you get your podcasts. I’m everywhere.

Tesla’s Roadster was supposed to arrive in 2020. The 2026 version may skip roads altogether.

The automaker is teasing an Oct. 1 reveal, and a SpaceX-assisted version could reportedly use cold-gas thrusters to actually hover. I’ll believe it when I see it. The original promised 0 to 60 in 1.9 seconds, 250+ mph and 620 miles of range. Apparently, those numbers weren’t crazy enough.

The flying version won’t be street legal because have you seen the average driver? 

Check it out here.

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🎓 What you learned today: Your IP address can affect what prices you see online, never hand an unlocked phone to a tech, Costco delivery reaches nonmembers, saved cards need kid-proof limits, and Tesla’s Roadster tease is getting very SpaceX-y.

🔜 Tomorrow: I look more like my father. But I have my mother’s cheekbones. The prompts that figure out your family looks you don’t want to miss.

💻 The answer: D) All of the above. A modern high-end car runs on somewhere north of 100 million lines of code. An F-35 runs on a small fraction of that. 

This is why a fender bender costs $4,000, your dealer talks about “software updates” and the guy who fixed your Buick in 1988 can’t touch it. You bought a data center on wheels that gets 28 miles per gallon.

Kim Komando • Komando.com • 510+ radio stations • Trusted by millions daily

🏆 THE KIM CHALLENGE: Forward this to ONE person who needs to hear it today. Pick the person who popped into your head while reading. You know who it is.

Have questions? Ask me here.

Photo credit(s): ChatGPT/Kim Komando, Vivilumens, WOLFBOX, Tesla

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