Technologies

Is Disney Plus With Ads Worth it?

I tested it for a week, and it may not be so bad for those people willing to spend $11.

When it first debuted in 2019 for $8 a month, Disney Plus was considered a great value for its commercial-free access to Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic and the legendary Disney vault. To top that off, you can stream on four screens at a time. Though there were some major titles missing at launch for US customers, the streaming service has since become a major player.

On Dec. 8, Disney rolled out its Disney Plus Basic plan, which costs $8 per month and includes ads but no downloads. The ad-free version is now $11, but can also select from three Disney bundles. Disney owns a majority stake in Hulu, so you may wonder if Disney Plus ads play in a similar format.

I tried it out, and I can assure you it’s a different experience than Hulu’s. But I’ll note that sometimes the commercials interrupt what you’re watching at odd intervals during a scene.

For many of you, paying $11 per month to stream without ads may be worth the cost for you and your family. Here’s a rundown of what I learned while testing the new subscription plan and what you might want to consider.

Read more: Best Streaming Services for Kids

There are ads in Disney Plus kids’ content, but not all of it

When I tried Netflix with ads, I noticed there were no commercials on kids’ titles, and Disney Plus seems to be doing that for some children’s content. Though ads played during the animated Diary of a Wimpy Kid film, Rodrick Rules, there were no commercials in Bluey episodes. Encanto, however, had a preroll of ads as well as three commercial breaks during the movie. I streamed all three on an adult profile.

If you have a child’s profile set to «Junior Mode,» Disney Plus reduces the number of available titles. This applies to ad-supported and ad-free subscriptions. There are only 26 animated films you can stream on this profile type, and it excludes the most popular features, such as Encanto, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Lightyear and even the 1950 animated version of Cinderella (which is rated G). While the limited number of TV series and movies available in Junior Mode are ad-free, you will probably want to adjust the parental controls so your kids can watch more.

Toggle off Junior Mode and change the content rating on the child profile to enable additional titles, including PG-13 and TV-14. Cinderella will be restored along with other Disney favorites like The Nightmare Before Christmas and Coco. However, many of these family-friendly releases have commercials, so count on sitting through a few ad breaks while watching Encanto, Descendants, Finding Dory and more. That’s the trade-off that could make or break this subscription option for you.

Sometimes ads won’t play

I found that when watching some shows, not all the ads would play. Disney Plus typically plays a preroll of ads before a show or movie begins that lasts either 30 or 45 seconds, and then additional ad breaks are shown on the progress bar. While watching the new Rodrick Rules movie, I sat through the preroll and then noted two commercial breaks set to play in the middle. I only watched the first set of commercials. The second break came about 30 minutes in, but for some reason, it was skipped as the movie played.

Finding Dory had three commercial breaks embedded in the middle of the film, but the second and third ad breaks were skipped. I did fast-forward through this film a few times, so I’m unsure if that affected commercial playback.

The frequency of ads varies

Like Netflix, the number of commercial breaks in a Disney Plus movie or TV show varies, but the length of each break averaged one minute. You can tell how many ad breaks are coming up by looking for dots on the progress bar. Home Alone had three ad breaks in the middle of its 1-hour, 44-minute runtime. All three lasted for one minute. 2018’s Black Panther only had one commercial break after the preroll, and it was for 60 seconds. And the aforementioned Rodrick Rules aired 60 seconds’ worth of commercials during its first break.

Encanto, which is a little over an hour and 50 minutes long, had three, one-minute commercial breaks after its preshow set of ads. The 44-minute Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special had two ad breaks in the middle after the preroll. One was 20 seconds long and the other didn’t play, and I did not pause or fast-forward through this movie.

In addition to a preroll, there were two 60-second ad breaks in a single 54-minute episode of Willow. I played two episodes of The Simpsons and each had a 23-minute run time. One had a 30-second set of commercials before the episode and two ad breaks during the show which lasted one minute each. The other episode had a 45-second pre-roll and two 60-second commercial breaks.

Zootopia Plus, a new animated Disney Plus series, had a short set of commercials before its nine-minute episode, but zero ads during the show. Maybe because it’s rated PG for «alcohol, implied language and kidnapping of a character»? PJ Masks, on the other hand, didn’t have any commercials at all — just like Bluey.

When compared to its rivals, Disney Plus does things differently. In one test, Hulu showed about five minutes’ worth of commercials in one 22-minute episode of Bob’s Burgers. HBO Max’s Our Flag Means Death has episodes that run for about 30 minutes. The platform ran one 25-second round of ads at the start of the show, and two more ad breaks for about 30 to 45 seconds each. Netflix shared that it airs roughly four to five minutes of ads per hour of content, and during my test, many of the commercial breaks lasted for 75 seconds each. Disney Plus is averaging about 2.5 minutes of ads per piece of content.

As far as the types of ads, there were spots for Nintendo Switch, Lego, Panera, Dior, IHG Hotels, Toyota, Barbie, Macy’s and other major brands. There was even an ad about RSV (respiratory syncytial virus). You can’t fast-forward during an ad break, and unlike Hulu, there are no random prompts asking you to select what types of ads you prefer to see.

Oh, you can’t stream Disney Plus Basic on Roku

If your go-to media player is a Roku, you’re out of luck for now when it comes to signing up for this subscription plan. According to Disney’s help center, the following ad-supported Disney Plus subscriptions are currently unavailable on Roku devices: Disney Plus Basic, Disney Bundle Duo Basic and Trio Basic. This is likely to change sometime in the future, however. For now, viewers have the option to use a different streaming device or sign up for an ad-free plan instead. I didn’t encounter any issues when streaming on a FireTV device, smart TV, Apple TV box, Chromecast, iPad or PC web browser. Your mileage may vary.

Skip this subscription if you’d rather avoid ads for your kids

The biggest question comes down to whether you prefer that your children can stream anything they want without any commercials. Junior Mode is all ad-free, but it’s missing so many titles — both animated and live-action — that kids love. Classics like Pinocchio, Cinderella and The Little Mermaid will at least play commercials before the movie begins, and may or may not feature ads in the middle of the program. The same goes for other family-friendly releases like Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi, Aladdin or Pirates of the Caribbean.

Some of you may find the ad-based experience similar to watching the Disney Channel on cable and don’t mind it. But not everyone is on board with that just to save $3. Though the price is now bumped up to $11 monthly for ad-free Disney Plus, you may want to stick with it so everyone in your household can enjoy watching without commercials.

Technologies

I Used to Tell People Wi-Fi 7 Routers Were a Waste of Money. CNET’s Lab Data Just Proved Me Wrong

Technologies

My Camera Test: Comparing the $499 Pixel 10A With the Galaxy S25 FE, Motorola Edge

The Pixel 10A’s cameras are similar to those on the 9A, but it still performs quite well compared to other phones in its price range.

Google’s $499 Pixel 10A uses nearly the same cameras as last year’s Pixel 9A, but I wanted to see how its photos directly match up to its midrange Android rivals: the $650 Samsung Galaxy S25 FE and the $550 Motorola Edge.

I traveled with all three phones around St. Petersburg, Florida, checking how flexible each was in different environments, from bright outdoor settings to an indoor coffee shop and an evening brewery. All three environments can be challenging for the small image sensors on each phone.

While I find the cameras on all three phones to have different strengths and weaknesses depending on the setting, I’m quite impressed with how the Pixel 10A keeps up. In my tests, the photos include lots of detail, even though certain settings appear to involve a lot of processing to improve them.

Wide and telephoto cameras

Starting with photos taken on the sidewalk in downtown St. Petersburg, I notice that all three phones handle bright sunlight slightly differently, especially how it’s depicted on the street.

For the Pixel 10A, the sun provides a slight exposure mark over the Bay First sign at the top of the frame, but it remains fairly cordoned off to focus on the rest of the streetscape. Zooming in, you can see the Century 21 location, but the street is captured in the most detail, with the phone’s camera maintaining its natural gray color.

For both the Galaxy S25 FE and the Motorola Edge, the sun has a more pronounced effect on the rest of the image. The pavement’s color is notably brighter. I also find both the S25 FE and the Edge have slightly more clarity on the business signs on the Bay First building, including the aforementioned Century 21 logo.

Since the S25 FE and the Edge each include a telephoto camera that supports 3x optical zoom, I took a photo at that zoom with each phone. The Pixel 10A uses digital zoom on the phone’s 48-megapixel wide camera, but a lot of the scene’s detail remains preserved.

The Pixel’s zoom photo provides a clear view of the 7th St N sign, the trees and the plants. However, if you look further back at the next intersection, you’ll notice that the 7th St S sign and the Colony Grill are much harder to see. It’s those smaller details that are captured by the S25 FE and the Edge, both aided by telephoto cameras, making them more visible.

Of the three zoom photo examples, I feel like the S25 FE has the best color reproduction while also retaining details like the signs further back. Even though the photo was taken with the S25 FE’s 8-megapixel telephoto camera rather than its 50-megapixel wide camera, the colors remain complementary when comparing the 1x to the 3x. Meanwhile, the Edge’s 10-megapixel telephoto camera looks quite a bit different from the 50-megapixel wide camera — the whole image has a more yellowish hue.

Ultrawide cameras

Moving inside the Southern Grounds coffee shop, I decided to use the ultrawide cameras to capture my sausage, egg and cheese on toast. The three photos came out wildly different.

The Pixel 10A’s 13-megapixel ultrawide and S25 FE’s 12-megapixel ultrawide have a more balanced set of colors and details, in my opinion. The wheat toast appears lighter in the Pixel’s photo than in the darker hues captured by both the S25 FE and the Edge.

When zooming into my notebook, however, the Pixel and S25 FE captured more of the page markings, details that blur together more in the photo taken by the Edge. While the Edge’s 50-megapixel ultrawide camera is a higher-spec number, I noticed it had a harder time distinguishing toast levels, giving more of it a darker look. If I hadn’t eaten it myself, I’d have thought it was burned based on the Edge’s photo.

Night photography

Moving over to a nighttime setting, I used the three phones to take photos outside of 3 Daughters Brewing. I felt like all three did a decent job at producing the colors of the building, but they differ in how they handle light sources.

Both the Pixel and the S25 FE tone back the glare produced by the various lighting fixtures. Meanwhile, the Edge’s photos show noticeable streaks that dominate the sky. When inspecting the photos more closely, I find that the Galaxy captured a sharper view of the furniture, like in the Connect 4 set next to the blue chairs in the center of the frame. The same details are visible in the Pixel’s and the Edge’s depictions of the scene, but they appear smudgy by comparison.

This type of scene needs to take advantage of a phone’s processing power in order to iron out visibility issues, and I do find that the Edge appears to come up short here in this regard, with a lot of noticeable image noise.

Selfies

Each phone takes selfies with noticeable differences in style and color choices. For this test example, I’m in a well-lit daytime room with natural light from a window. The 12-megapixel front-facing camera on Google’s Pixel 10A brightened up my face as if there was a light in front of me, and captured a decent amount of the details of my hair and face.

The front-facing camera on Samsung’s Galaxy S25 FE shows a noticeably darker color tone, but it still captures a similar shade of orange on the wall behind me. Of the three photos, I felt like the S25 captures the most details, including strands of hair, and defaulted to a closer crop than the other two.

The photos taken by the 50-megapixel selfie camera on the Motorola Edge feel a bit smoothed out. The orange color on the wall is noticeably different from the Pixel and the S25 FE, though it does capture a lot of my face details, from hair strands to the fabric textures on my shirt.

The $499 Pixel 10A camera keeps up and, in some cases, exceeds the detail captured by the slightly more expensive $550 Motorola Edge and $650 Galaxy S25 FE. I’m quite impressed by how the Pixel camera handles colors and low-light environments, but the phone’s processing work sometimes makes scenes appear brighter than they are in real life.

The Galaxy S25 FE is no slouch either, with a third telephoto lens for capturing more detail farther away. While I did find the Motorola Edge to struggle in low light, it is one of the lowest-cost phone options currently available for someone who must have a 3x optical telephoto camera.

But if you can live without the telephoto lens, the Pixel 10A’s low cost and photography abilities will likely be a good fit for most people.

Google’s Pixel 10A Looks Stylish for a Low-Cost Flagship Phone

+15 More

See all photos

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for March 14 #741

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for March 14, No. 741.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Does today’s date seem memorable to you? If so, today’s NYT Strands puzzle might be easy. Some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: A math teacher’s favorite dessert.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: 3.14

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

RITE, SPIT, TIPS, STAT, STATE, GIVE, RUST, FINE, LAZE, SURE, PEAL

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

VENT, CRUST, FRUIT, EDGES, GLAZE, FILLING, LATTICE

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is HAPPYPIDAY. To find it, start with the H that’s six rows down and three to the right from the upper-left corner, and make — well, a pie shape.