back to article Oh Brother. Printer giant denies dirty toner tricks as users cry foul

Brother is the latest printer manufacturer to come under fire over alleged sharp practices around the use of third-party consumables versus its own ink supplies. Right-to-repair activist and electronics technician Louis Rossmann posted a video blasting the Japanese company, claiming it has updated printer firmware to block or …

  1. msknight

    HP is the way to go?

    Didn't I read recently that they're losing money and shedding staff? Really? Is that the way Brother want to go?

    Oh yes. It was here. https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/28/hp_cuts_jobs_as_profits_slide/

    Strange times I guess. Oh Brother.

    1. alain williams Silver badge

      Re: HP is the way to go?

      Maybe the staff that HP shed have gone to Brother bringing with them the evil disease of toner games.

      1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
        Devil

        Re: HP is the way to go?

        I really enjoyed the Toner Games films. Especially the one where the children were all killed by having printers thrown at them by trebuchets - then their corpses ground down into paste to make new printer inks.

        Or did I just dream it after eating all that cheese I found underneath the fridge?

        1. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: HP is the way to go?

          That's what happens when you wipe the wheels down with old ink and let it age. You'll get different hallucinations depending on the colour used

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      HP still cheats

      I have an old HP CP1525nw color laserjet. If I put 3rd party toner cartridges in it, no MS Office product will print in color. Only black & white. From any of the 3 PC's in the house. (Running Windows 10 and 11.) One has to have Office print to a pdf, then print the pdf from Acrobat to get the Office document printed in color. If I put official HP toner cartidges in, Office prints in color directly.

      1. Mrs Spartacus

        Re: HP still cheats

        That's fascinating, and potentially opens up a whole new avenue of questions. Will those documents print directly from LibreOffice? If not, will they do so if first created in LibreOffice rather than MS Office?

  2. tmTM

    " Brother firmware updates do not block the use of third-party ink in our machines."

    Aye but it does force it to print in much lower quality, and I'm sure when questioned directly you'll blame the ink cartridge you lying snake.

    1. An_Old_Dog Silver badge

      Re: " Brother firmware updates do not block the use of third-party ink in our machines."

      Yup. Lawyeristic weasel-wording which does not address the issue (reduced print quality and degraded or blocked features when using 3rd-party-provided ink).

    2. abend0c4 Silver badge

      Re: " Brother firmware updates do not block the use of third-party ink in our machines."

      I've had third-party ink cartridges randomly rejected by Brother printers as "unrecognised" either on first installation or after they've been working and are still almost full. The best hypothesis I can come up with is that some (re-) manufacturers are reusing date-coded chips from official cartridges whose lifetime is expiring.

      I've just bought a very solidly-built Canon printer, despite the almost unbelievable cost of the miniscule-capacity official ink cartridges (which include a print head), on the basis that a UK supplier offers an ink-replenishment solution. I'm not updating the firmware and if the source of cheap ink dries up the printer is heading for landfill. Weird way to run an industry.

      1. elDog

        Re: " Brother firmware updates do not block the use of third-party ink in our machines."

        I was just about to remark on this type of behaviour with my Canon color laser printer. MF733CDW. I guess they all go to the same golf country club.

      2. Old Man Ted

        Re: " Brother firmware updates do not block the use of third-party ink in our machines."

        I found that digging up the old CD which came with the printer and reinstalling this helps in all sorts of way to get back the use of an A3 and A2 printers. Sometimes MS does not like this, so I installed an OLD copy of Office circa 2003 and suddenly could print the A2 paper drawings again.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: " Brother firmware updates do not block the use of third-party ink in our machines."

        The other option would be a tank-based printer - even OEM ink for them is relatively reasonably priced, and there's no DRM involved. The initial purchase price is somewhat higher, though.

    3. ITMA Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: " Brother firmware updates do not block the use of third-party ink in our machines."

      Oh for the days of printers such as Oki's where a toner cartridge is literally just a plastic box (or tube) with toner in it - and nothing else. No chips, no nothing.

      As far as I can still, most Oki page printers are still like that.

      1. PRR Silver badge

        Re: " Brother firmware updates do not block the use of third-party ink in our machines."

        > As far as I can still, most Oki page printers are still like that.

        "OKI Data Americas has discontinued the sales of all OKI-branded printer hardware in the United States, Canada, and Latin America." https://www.oki.com/us/printing/

        Seems to be mostly true. One offered as used/good. Oddly the Oki Microline 320 Turbo/N Dot Matrix Printer (not really a page printer) seems to be a stock thing. This is the old OKI ML120(?) with more pins. They were used far into the 2000s in automobile alignment shops because they were truly filth-proof and could print diagrams to mystify the customers.

        1. RAMChYLD Bronze badge

          Re: " Brother firmware updates do not block the use of third-party ink in our machines."

          Oki has other problems tho.

          I own a C3300N. Printer clogged so frequently in the two years I owned it I gave up. Apparently the Magenta toner turns into rocks in the hot and humid Malaysian weather for mysterious reasons and clog the thing.

          1. ITMA Silver badge
            Devil

            Re: " Brother firmware updates do not block the use of third-party ink in our machines."

            I was going to ask about humidity before I spotted "hot and humid Malaysian weather".

            You are likely to have other problems even with other manufacturers printers such as print quality (damp paper) issues.

            1. RAMChYLD Bronze badge

              Re: " Brother firmware updates do not block the use of third-party ink in our machines."

              Funny thing is tho, it doesn't happen to toners of other laser printers sold in the country, only Oki ones, and only specifically Oki Magenta toners- the printer always only reports Magenta Toner error, never Cyan, Yellow or Black. And indeed, the magenta cartridge was the only one with colored rocks formed from toner powder in it.

              And getting to get their printer to work in Linux... Let's just say I actually made a donation to the Foo2ZJS project and hooked Oki up with the developer, just so I can get the printer working. The driver is slow because compression is not supported, and color management still isn't a thing.

        2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: " Brother firmware updates do not block the use of third-party ink in our machines."

          Quickfit (tyres/brakes/exhausts) used them here in the UK. In blue, to match the corporate branding. They looked like someone had taken them apart (or masked them off) and spray painted them because the were the standard 80's beige inside.

      2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: " Brother firmware updates do not block the use of third-party ink in our machines."

        "Oh for the days of printers such as Oki's where a toner cartridge is literally just a plastic box (or tube) with toner in it - and nothing else. No chips, no nothing."

        The Panasonic KXP-$something I used many, many years ago had a hopper with a screw/worm drive agitator at the bottom and you "fed" it toner from a bottle when it ran out.

        Maybe it wasn't a KX-Pnnnn model. I can't find anything that looks close the ones we had on a Google image search. It was the early days of readily available laser printers, the other one we had was a Canon LBP-8 A1, which at least gives the time frame. HP LaserJet II might have been around then too.

    4. KarMann
      Holmes

      Re: " Brother firmware updates do not block the use of third-party ink in our machines."

      I was wondering whether it was significant that they were asked about toner, but answered exclusively in terms of ink.

    5. Dr Fidget

      Re: " Brother firmware updates do not block the use of third-party ink in our machines."

      Well, they would say that, wouldn't they? To paraphrase Mandy Rice-Davies

  3. mark l 2 Silver badge

    I see no reason why a printer needs to have connection to the internet to get firmware updates. My 2005 Epson inkjet has been working for almost 20 years without one.

    I do have a Canon colour laser but its blocked from Internet access as If there was some bug that requires a firmware update I will do it manually, once i am sure its not gonna cause other issues.

    1. Graham Cobb

      Yep. Same thing with my Brother DCP-L8410.

      I have many times recommended Brother printers as this one has been an excellent performer and works well in my (Linux-based) environment.

      As it happens, I do use Brother toner (my usage is low and so the cost is small - and my local IT shop provides it on 24 hours notice, so the convenience is worth the price). However, if they really start doing these tricks I will certainly not be recommending them again!

    2. Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese Silver badge

      I see no reason why a printer needs to have connection to the internet to get firmware updates.

      Likewise. I selected and purchased a printer which does what I want it to do, and see no reason for wanting to modify it, so why would I want to update the firmware?

      1. Someone Else Silver badge

        [...] so why would I want to update the firmware?

        You don't, of course. But what you want doesn't mean a tinker's damn to the C-suite.

        What? Do you actually think you're the customer?!?

    3. intrigid

      The dirty little secret no-one wants to admit

      Firmware and other automatic were never about improving features or security for end users. They were always about improving profits for vendors. And I'm not just talking about printers. I'm talking about literally everything that receives automatic updates.

      Does your device seem to be a little slower after the latest major update? Well, it is starting to get a bit old. Have you thought about getting an upgrade?

      1. kmorwath

        Re: The dirty little secret no-one wants to admit

        Sometimes they do really fix vulnerabilities or bugs - or improve some functions. But often now they are used to increase profits.

        1. Herring` Silver badge

          Re: The dirty little secret no-one wants to admit

          Would there be vulnerabilities if your printer didn't connect to the sodding internet?

    4. david 12 Silver badge

      Mostly, a USB-connected private printer is just not useful to me. At home and at work, the printers are on the local network.

      I could give them fixed IP, block IPV6, identify and block the connection to the internet, identify and block connections to well-known update points,etc but that is a lot of work.

      1. DS999 Silver badge

        It isn't that hard. Put them on a subnet that is routable only to your local network. So if your local network is 192.168.1.x put your printer (and other stuff you don't want connecting to the web like smart TVs) on 192.168.2.x. Set a manual route for 192.168.2.x to reach 192.168.1.x and no default route.

        No need to worry about IPv6 (just don't enable it at all for devices on that subnet) or "identify" connections. If the printer can't talk to anything outside your house, then you don't need to identify shit.

        If what I describe is "too much" then you should turn in your Register reader card.

        1. cmb11

          Even easier, just set a manual IP with no gateway it DNS settings. The printer can't phone home if there's not gateway for name resolution.

          1. david1024

            Stop it at the router

            I blacklist management interfaces and embedded things like cameras at the router. That way I still get intranet dns, but they can't phone home (and wow do those cheap up cameras want to talk to China!)

            1. Sam Shore

              Re: Stop it at the router

              I did that with our Chinese sourced printers (3d, fabric, plastic laminate etc), but then I found the next generations of devices had the official NIC you could configure, and block, but the firewall logs were showing that the devices were also requesting IP addresses from any DHCP server that would respond, and start nattering away from the new IP address instead. I started to put our China sourced printers into it's own LAN with strict limitations on traffic going to and from the PCs in the main LAN, and nothing in the printers LAN could get to the internet.

        2. Annihilator Silver badge
          Facepalm

          Yes it's our fault Brother are such sh1ts isn't it? I'm guessing (probably incorrectly) that you were also championing Apple's views that if you just held the iPhone 4 in the correct manner, everything would be fine?

    5. RAMChYLD Bronze badge

      My Epson inkjet lasted less than 6 months. Ink clog. Annoying.

      For the records, I rarely print, but when I do it is something really important, like tax returns to be sent off for filing.

      1. Is It Me

        And that is why people were buying Brother laser printers, a bit more expensive to start with but can be left for months or years and still work and cheap compatible toners which make the printing costs tiny

      2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        "My Epson inkjet lasted less than 6 months. Ink clog. Annoying.

        For the records, I rarely print,"

        The latter is the most likely cause of the former, especially if you power the printer off when not in use rather than leave it stand-by mode. In stand-by mode, some makes/models will do a short cleaning cycle often enough to stop the nozzles becoming clogged with dried out ink residue. The printer will last longer, but will cost you more in ink and possibly just happen to run out at that crucial moment you need to print something. Inkjet can provide some very nice colour prints and photos if properly looked after, using decent ink and the correct paper, but have obvious downsides if only used occasionally.

        When I last needed to replace my home printer, had some "must have" specs such as Ethernet, postscript and duplex. I looked at all the "nice to have" specs and decided none of them, such as colour, were used often enough to justify and went with a black and white laser printer. For the very rare occasion I need colour or photo-quality, I just create a PDF document and take it somewhere that has what I need. I think that was once in the last two years. It's a great option if you have somewhere nearby that can do those "one offs" for you, but a pain the wallet if you don't.

  4. Headley_Grange Silver badge

    I've blocked my Epson from direct contact with the web with the router's firewall, blocked all of the dozens of packages it installs using a software firewall and deleted the Epson updater app just in case. I still suspect the printer of shenanigans because it seems to need head cleaning more than it used to do but that could also be due to age and the fact that I no longer print very often.

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      That's the problem with inkjets. If you're not using them at least once every couple of weeks, they become very heavy on the ink for cleaning or the quality falls off a cliff - if they don't clean themselves automatically.

      1. Gene Cash Silver badge

        There are two rules of printing:

        1. You choose an inkjet printer and it is used so frequently a laser would have been cheaper.

        2. You choose an inkjet printer and it is used so infrequently that you waste all your ink cleaning the heads and a laser would have been cheaper.

        1. Headley_Grange Silver badge

          All true, but the printer still works and it has a good resolution scanner and prints A3, both of which are useful to me. When I find I'm using it more than normal I run a cron job to print a test page every morning which keeps the heads clear and probably uses less ink than running the cleaning routing every few days. When it eventually gives up the ghost or they stop supporting drivers I'll look at a laserjet.

          1. RAMChYLD Bronze badge

            I had a color dot matrix printer that could print A2... Wish it still worked, the rubber pulleys inside disintegrated.

            Also getting a color ribbon for that thing is impossible.

        2. MonkeyCee

          Too True

          3. When going to purchase a printer, there will be 94 varieties of inkjet on display, 5 varieties of expensive colour laser on display and one variety of cheap black and white laser that is never displayed, and is the modernized HP LJ4. Just 1200 DPI, USB and more polymer than metal.

        3. ilithium

          Completely agree - particularly now that I've been seeing a fairly large number of cheap colour laser printers on places like Facebonk Marketfarce.

          The one thing my HP Colour LaserJet doesn't do, though, is print to photo paper.

          If there was a way to print like that with a laser printer, I think the (consumer) inkjet printer market would struggle.

          1. Chz

            Agreed, but for the TCO of running an ink jet for photos (given that I rarely need to print them) I can print the things at Costco for less. A bit less convenient perhaps, but it's exceedingly rare that I need a photo quality print of an image *right now*.

          2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

            "The one thing my HP Colour LaserJet doesn't do, though, is print to photo paper."

            While true you really can't the quality of an inkjet usingg a good quality glossy photo paper, some colour lasers can do a passable job if you pick the correct paper. Most people rarely, if ever, look at the printer settings for paper type and actually try out some of those different paper types. Most people will just buy whatever "copier paper" they see at the lowest price :-)

            (And especially check supermarket "offers". I saw some in Morrisons the other week and I happened to need some. Luckily I deal with printers quite a bit in my job and the pack of paper felt wrong. I eventually found in very small print on the back of the pack that it was only 4/5ths of a ream, ie 400, not 500 pages. It wasn't cheap after all.)

          3. RAMChYLD Bronze badge

            I think they do print to card stock tho. And maybe it's just Oki's toners but aren't laser printouts glossy? Maybe combine that with a card stock and you have photo prints?

    2. Ken Hagan Gold badge

      I rely on incompetence. My HP printer would (it tells me) just love to download the latest firmware but when I pushed the OK button it muttered something about a download failure and gave up.

      So ... would like to be evil but too crap to actually be so.

      1. Not Yb Silver badge

        The current firmware in our HP printer suggests we update it. I suggested "no", because it's not MY security that's being updated, and an insecure printer isn't really much of a malware vector on a home network. Either it prints the document, or doesn't, the only "communication" it really needs is "is print job done?" So far 3rd party cartridges still work great.

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          The printer could well have quite some compute power and can execute code from badly written postscript/pdf/jpg interpreters/decoders so in theory malware could get in to the printer from a nasty document and then do naughty stuff on your network. I suspect that's not all that likely and if possible, likely to be from you more hardened hackers going after bigger fish than a home user. The bug multi-user MDF type stuff you find in offices usually as a full on GUI interface and web server on board, sometime with custom apps installed to manage users and the printer such as Papercut and it's ilk, making then juicy targets if a vuln. is found. Having said that, my little monochrome Brother laser at home has a web interface too. But as others suggested up-thread, it thinks the DNS server and Gateway are at 0.0.0.0 and I don't worry too much about being a target anyway. I think that would be, at least for now, a bit of a theoretical hack.

    3. Philo T Farnsworth Silver badge

      Same here.

      I've put my printers on a segment of my local network which is non-routable, so any attempts to "phone home" are blocked.

      Same thing for any other devices such as NAS boxes, scanners, routers, repeaters, etc.

      As long as it's working to my satisfaction, it doesn't need to talk to anyone but me.

      Unfortunate, most end users don't have the skill or the inclination to erect a firewall or even the knowledge that the device is chattering away behind their back to some server somewhere reporting who knows what.

  5. Lazlo Woodbine Silver badge

    If there wasn't such a huge difference between the prices of OEM and third-party consumables, more people would be OK buying OEM.

    For my printer I can buy two full packs of third-party ink for the price of a single Epson cartridge, and I'm running a Workforce printer, not one of the printers that costs less than the ink...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Overpriced consumables is a way for printer OEMs to recoup the revenue lost by flogging their hardware ridiculously cheap. It's an onerous penalty paid by higher volume users.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Some OEMs are offering large tanks, refillable tanks and even CF based printers to high volume users based on a much higher up-front cost for the printer itself, ie they take their profits from the printer instead of the loss they soak up when selling to most consumers grade inkjets.

  6. KLane

    Xerox seems to be OK..

    The Xerox Workcenter 6027 I use is a decent color laser, and also does network scan and fax. As to after-market cartridges, it only shows 'Non-Xerox toner' on a restart screen, and that's it. No features etc seem to be impacted.

    1. Craig 2

      Re: Xerox seems to be OK..

      Same here, have a couple of Xerox Versalinks and the only mention of non-geniune toner is when you look in the maintenance menus.

    2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: Xerox seems to be OK..

      That's good to hear. I was wondering if the Xerox brand still bore any relation to Xerox, of it if had been bought up by someone to use and abuse as has happened to Kodak and Polaroid.

      I'm on the look out for a cheapish laser printer for Mum - as her inkjet is dead, and I don't want to replace it with a new one - given how little she prints nowadays. But she refuses to be without a printer - even though I suspect it's only getting used once every 2-3 months. Hoping to pursuade her that black and white is fine for what she needs.

      Got rid of mine years ago, but can steal the odd printout from the office, if needs be. But that seems to only be once a year.

      1. neilg

        Re: Xerox seems to be OK..

        I snagged a Xerox Phaser 6125N for a nicker, yes £1 ! on a no reserve ebay Auction. Had to drive 20 miles to collect & got a hernia loading it into the car.

        Month later spotted someone selling a box of 45 assorted toners - OEM & 3rd party. (office clearance)

        Won at £5. Non OEM just display "non Xerox toner" but otherwise work perfectly fine.

        Printer Works wonderfully, OK it's old but in excellent condition. It's fast, quiet, sits on my LAN (no outside access) Does the job and everyone uses it.

        So I've now got a cracking Colour laser printer (from when they were made properly) & enough supplies to see me out. Stuff HP, Canon & Brother.

        1. IGotOut Silver badge

          Re: Xerox seems to be OK..

          The phasers are brilliant printers, but boy do they use some power.

          Also don't move one until they are completely cooled down, they are not fun to clean.

        2. MachDiamond Silver badge

          Re: Xerox seems to be OK..

          "I snagged a Xerox Phaser 6125N for a nicker, yes £1 ! on a no reserve ebay Auction. Had to drive 20 miles to collect & got a hernia loading it into the car."

          The power of time and keeping things on a watch list. I picked up an iMac 27" Retina for $25. It cost $75 in petrol to go fetch it. Still, $100 for the computer was dirt cheap. I need to fit a new suspension part on my car and I'll be driving 150 miles each way to pick up some 170W solar panels for less than $20ea in a few days. I'm also planning a few other stops along the way so it isn't all just for the panels, but the price is so good that it's worth the drive just for the panels.

      2. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: Xerox seems to be OK..

        "I'm on the look out for a cheapish laser printer for Mum "

        Look for estate sales. Especially ones near senior communities and you will often find a low-mileage printer, spare ink/toner, cables, etc for pence on the pound. I have a collection of all-in-one units that I picked up for free. The trick is being to be there at the close of the sale when the main goal is to get the property emptied so it can be tidied up and sold. Those are the sales I look for. If the sale is just to clear out stuff that isn't being used anymore, they often want too high a price for things and won't dicker.

        1. Like a badger

          Re: Xerox seems to be OK..

          All a bit ghoulish just to score a cheaper printer?

          1. MachDiamond Silver badge

            Re: Xerox seems to be OK..

            "All a bit ghoulish just to score a cheaper printer?"

            The sales I often visit to empty a home keep things from going to landfill. Is that ghoulish? The Monday after the Saturday sale, a roll-off dumpster will be delivered and whatever remains will get tossed in. People get older and need to move into managed care. We will all die at some point, it's a fact of life. I certainly hope when I go that my things will go to somebody that wants them and not to the local dump.

            My kitchen is mainly stocked with things I find at estate sales. Ever shop for a stand mixer? $400ish new, $20 at an estate sale with loads of attachments. Not many people in my area can their own food so I often find loads of jars and supplies from people that would have grown up doing that sort of thing. Think of all of the energy that would have gone into making those glass jars.

            The printers I have would have gone in the skip. There are just too damn many of them and once they're a few years old, finding ink/toner is a chore so nobody wants them. An HP laser printer I got for free turns out to have a cartridge that's $80-$100. No having to guess why it was being given away. With patience, I found a new OEM cart on eBay for ~$35. That printer is a backup for my 4100TN which has been a workhorse for ages now. Many of the other printers, usually all-in-one units, will be checked and given away to people that need them in town. I think I've saturated that market but I'm sure there's going to be a family that needs one for their kid(s) soon enough. I may have somebody to help me set up a stand at the monthly food bank to find people that need a computer/printer.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Xerox seems to be OK..

      I'm curious as you specifically mention it. Do you still use the fax functionality?

      1. KLane

        Re: Xerox seems to be OK..

        Occasionally, yes. Not a high demand for it, but some MDs we use are a bit dated in their operations, and prefer it over email attachments for signed documents. Works just fine, and you manage the Fax phonebook from the PC app. FYI, I can print to it just fine from my android phone via WiFi.

  7. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    "what brand is left to recommend?"

    Quite.

    1. fishman

      Pencil and paper.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Crayons as well, I would think. I always liked the big box of 64.

        1. ITMA Silver badge
          Devil

          Clay tablets and sharp sticks....

        2. Someone Else Silver badge

          That's what our pResident uses (although 64 of them does tend to strain the current Adderall dose...).

    2. vyperskum

      I used to be a fan of Kyocera printers but it's been a while since I bought one and I don't currently have access to one to test.. anyone else have an opinion on them ?

      1. MrReynolds2U

        Kyocera (7/10)

        I bought a colour one for the office and it's great... except when it decides the new non-OEM cartridge is empty. I suspect it's the chips on the cartridges sometimes, not necessarily the printer. But it has made me question buying Kyocera in the future. It has also got to the stage where it eats paper occasionally. I miss my (very) old HP lasers.

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: Kyocera (7/10)

          My quite recent Brother laser has a service menu where you can override the "toner empty" status. It's still on the original toner cart., which it reported as "very low" last November. I ordered a 3rd party cart and have yet to install it as it seems quite happy running on "empty" after I lied to it :-) I'll swap the cart out what the black starts to look a bit grey.

      2. dwyermic

        Kyocera laser printer

        I have a Kyocera P2235dn on my home network, black and white. I don't do a lot of printing so haven't had to replace the toner cartridge. It's given me no trouble, so can recommend it.

        Many years ago, I remember reading a study that a university in Europe had done, to test the ceramic laser drum. They had printed 250,000 sheets at normal page coverage, and the drum was still going strong. My printer has a ceramic drum, so am not expecting it to ever wear out, unlike some of the metal drum in other brands.

        PS they didn't waste all that the paper, just inverted it and re-used it.

        1. Someone Else Silver badge

          Re: Kyocera laser printer

          So, 125,000 sheets, then....

          Still seems like a lot..

        2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: Kyocera laser printer

          I remember the first call out I got to "fix" a broken, brand new Kyocera laser printer when the ceramic drums first came out. It was a large office type one that could do A3. Someone had put a label sheet through, used a few labels than decided to be "economic" and used the same label sheet again to print some more labels. A couple peeled off and stuck themselves to the very expensive long life ceramic drum. That was a costly mistake! They wanted if repaired under warranty too!

      3. Peter2

        I have an opinion on Kyocera printers.

        I have have looked after a fleet of a few dozen Kyocera FS2020's for ~15 years, quite a few of which racked up print counts literally in the millions; I think the highest got to ~2.5 million sheets. Fantastic printers, hugely rugged and the maintenance was a dream. They don't have any problems using compatible toners assuming that it's the right grade. Even if it's the wrong grade then it'll still print it in my experience, although this will have adverse effects on the drum cleaning blades and thus the drum service life if not adequately maintained. They'll also accept crap quality paper quite happily. (notably if somebody puts paper in at a 15 degree angle then it'll pull it in sideways, flatten it out and spit the sheet out of the top instead of jamming and crying for an engineer)

        Kyocera has a "maintenance kit" which contains basically every moving part, all of which could be replaced on the 2020 with nothing more than opening a panel and replacing a unit, with the most difficult one being the fuser; which you had to poke two clips with a random key/screwdriver to detach the clips and remove it from the printer (a nice bit of userproofing; stopping the end user from accidentally damaging the fuser rollers)

        The time taken to replace a dev unit, fuser or drum was less than the time taken to remove the part from the packaging materials. (They were very, very well packed against impact damage or contamination in transit)

        On the basis of this rather positive experience and with the obvious age of the printers getting to the point of absurdity, combined with spare parts availability starting to become a problem (still available from Kyocera OEM, but they were obviously being made specially for us and then shipped from Asia...) I decided to pay that little bit more and upgrade to the Kyocera p3145, basically a straight upgrade to a more modern printer in the range.

        All was well for a bit. The dev unit and drum are relatively painless to replace at about a hundred thousand sheets, but my god the fuser unit at about a quarter million sheets. You've got to basically totally disassemble the printer shell, then unscrew the fuser and pull it out and then disconnect some tiny delicate wires seemingly specifically designed to be easily damageable, thus writing off either the fuser unit or the entire printer and then reassemble the dammed thing again.

        Suffice to say that the useful lifetime of these printers is effectively until the first fuser unit change. I'm going to be replacing the printers rather than repairing them at that point and after that experience it's not going to be with Kyocera kit.

        But if your expecting to be printing less than a quarter million sheets over the printer lifetime then they are great.

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Pro tip when choosing new, heavy duty office type printers. Make sure you can access the service manuals before choosing (via whatever source you can find, although I find many OEMs tend to make them available these days) And beware of HPs if you've not used had them for a few years. The laser printers are made by Samsung now. The entire mechanical design philosophy is not what you'd expect from an HP printer so it's a whole new learning curve comparable with going to an brand you've not dealt with before.

          1. JoeCool Silver badge

            I don't think Samsung is involved

            HP bought the business, then discontinued every model.

            Samsung consumables are becoming un-obtainable for some models. Whereas the HP stuff continues to be in stock.

  8. An_Old_Dog Silver badge

    HP Lawsuit

    Dynamic Revenue Security Feature

    FTFY.

  9. IamAProton

    Security risk

    "HP CEO Enrique Lores said in a 2024 interview that HP was concerned about potential security threats [PDF] posed by third-party ink cartridges."

    How's that even possible? An ink cartridge is just a little plastic container with some ink.

    /s

    1. Curious

      Re: Security risk

      Perhaps because the HP CEO believes that HP has not coded the printer's interface used to communicate with the print cartridge with sufficient input sanitisation.

      "

      A researcher found a vulnerability over the serial interface between the cartridge and the printer. Essentially they found a buffer overflow. That's where you have got an interface that you may not have tested or validated well enough..."

      "

      https://www.action-intell.com/2022/10/05/hp-bug-bounty-program-finds-reprogrammable-chips-open-printers-to-malware.

    2. abend0c4 Silver badge

      Re: Security risk

      An ink cartridge is just a little plastic container with some ink.

      Actually, Canon and HP cartridges usually have an integral (thermal) printhead whereas Brother and Epson printheads (piezoelectric) are usually integral to the printer.

      The security issue comes, ironically, from the choice to include chips on the cartridges. There has (allegedly) been a case of third-party cartridges exploiting a bug in a printer's firmware (by carefully crafting a response) resulting in the printer subsequently rejecting cartridges from other sources. That of course is not an argument against third-party supplies, but a condemnation of the poor design choices and implementation of the printer manufacturer, but it appears to have been spun as a positive for aspiring monopolists.

      1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

        Re: Security risk

        The security issue comes, ironically, from the choice to include chips on the cartridges.

        Another fun one I heard recently was a general supply chain risk. So a chip on a cartridge should only need to contain a fairly small number of bits to do pretty much any sane function. So say a 16kb chip should be waay more than enough. Except chip makers often aren't producing anything with that small a capacity, so have a 2 or 4Mb instead.. Which then has a lot more memory to install a payload, and then arrange a delivery of printer cartridges to your target. I wonder how many businesses would look a delivery of gift toner in the mouth?

        Like you say, it's a risk entirely of the vendors making by deciding to install DRM or make 'smart' ink cartridges instead of keeping them as dumb, low risk consumables.

        1. Jon 37 Silver badge

          Re: Security risk

          An unexpected delivery of toner is usually a scam. They ask the receptionist what kind of printer it is, then bamboozle them into "placing an order". So the toner turns up, then a bit later a bill arrives. The bill is really expensive.

          1. MachDiamond Silver badge

            Re: Security risk

            "So the toner turns up, then a bit later a bill arrives."

            Send a "paid" invoice with the package.

          2. Jellied Eel Silver badge

            Re: Security risk

            An unexpected delivery of toner is usually a scam. They ask the receptionist what kind of printer it is, then bamboozle them into "placing an order". So the toner turns up, then a bit later a bill arrives. The bill is really expensive.

            Not heard of that one, but am familiar with sales pressuring businesses to 'save money' by renting printers and copiers. Then discovering the per-page charge they've signed up for. Or it's a variation on PAYG consumable deals the likes of HP try to flog customers. Ink & paper every month, whether you need/want it or not.

            Getting malware-loaded cartridges into a business would need a bit of social engineering to identify the printers in use and if they're vulnerable. But if a box of ink arrives with a delivery note, would a business quarantine that until delivery is cross-checked with against an order? Recon would probably just need a bit of dumpster diving to find packaging that had been left out for recycling.

        2. MachDiamond Silver badge

          Re: Security risk

          "Except chip makers often aren't producing anything with that small a capacity, so have a 2 or 4Mb instead."

          Sounds like an interesting way to smuggle data. Who would suspect a toner or ink cartridge?

          1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

            Re: Security risk

            FWIW, in some of the more "secure" orgs I deal with, they would. And do. Anything with a chip in it gets destroyed if it's being replaced. Including toner and ink carts.

            I was once asked specifically to attend a site to remove the HDDs from the soon to be scrapped printers. I had very specific instructions. When I pointed out there was also an SD card in the printer, the job came to an immediate halt, various people who wear shiny brass adornments on their jackets and hats got involved and the job was put on hold while "procedures" were examined and re-written. I often wonder if anyone ended up peeling spuds or whitewashing rocks for that screw up or was it just civvy contractors involved (like me!) :-)

      2. kmorwath

        "Actually, Canon and HP cartridges usually have an integral (thermal) printhead"

        It was true a long time ago, when inkjet printers were a lot simpler. Thing changes. Some models may still have a print head in the cartridge, many don't. I had a six-ink HP where the cartridge were not on the moving print head - more separate inks don't allow to use a small head on each cartridge. My Canon photo printer has a separate head (you can even replace that, if you can find one, but it's not cheap). Printers using refillable tanks obviously have a separate print head.

    3. ChrisC Silver badge

      Re: Security risk

      If it's definitely just a plain, entirely passive, ink/toner cartridge with absolutely zero ability to directly sense what's being printed (i.e. it doesn't *also* incorporate a print head/toner drum), and which sits in a location within the printer from where it wouldn't be able to use any embedded sensors within the cart to independently sense what's being printed, then yup.

      If not, the question then becomes just how much do you think someone out there might want to be able to access the information you're printing, and how far might they be prepared to go to achieve it?

      That said however, if you're working in an environment where you think someone *would* go to those lengths to steal your data, then even using OEM supplies isn't in itself a guarantee of security, because unless you've got your own security team watching every inch of the manufacturing and delivery process to ensure that the supplies you're using cannot contain anything other than what the OEM says they should contain, then how do you *know* for certain they don't contain something?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Security risk

        If you're working in a space where data is that sensitive and you need to go to great lengths to protect it, and it's so valuable that a bad actor could try to intercept it on the printer....then you've already got a big budget for security and can stretch to own-brand ink cartridges

        1. mostly average
          Trollface

          Re: Security risk

          At that point, ink on dead trees becomes itself a liability. Especially when said ink is applied to the dead tree in such a pattern as to store sensitive information, then said dead tree with it's proprietary pigment pattern can be folded and safely concealed in ones nickers.

          1. Someone Else Silver badge

            Re: Security risk

            ...or in a bathroom...

      2. heyrick Silver badge

        Re: Security risk

        "plain, entirely passive, ink/toner cartridge with absolutely zero ability to directly sense what's being printed"

        I don't think it's a question of detecting what's being printed, I think it's a whole overblown rigamarole to handshake with the printer to say "look! this sucker bought real unicorn tears!" and the printer reasons "awesome, I like you, start making ink splats for me, cheers". All so unnecessary, especially for those cartridges that also have expiry dates. This isn't a box of eggs (though, to be fair, American eggs are soon to be as expensive as printer ink) so why the date? Oh, right, to enhance consumption silly me, either you use it or you lose it (and, of course, you then have to buy more - that's what it's about).

    4. RAMChYLD Bronze badge

      Re: Security risk

      I read that PDF. Some BS about the ink cartridge's flash chip injecting malware that makes the printer send a copy of your prints to China or something.

      Sounds more like HP engineering epic fail if you ask me.

      1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

        Re: Security risk

        I read that PDF. Some BS about the ink cartridge's flash chip injecting malware that makes the printer send a copy of your prints to China or something.

        I don't think that's the biggest risk. That would be having a 'trusted' device on an internal network that has permissions for connections to servers. So inject malware, use that to open connections from the 'trusted' devices and ping your C&C server that you're into the network. If firewalls don't have a strict policy about outbound connections, then the network is compromised.. And a printer shouldn't really need to open those connections.

  10. An_Old_Dog Silver badge

    At the Printer Manufacturers' Association Roundtable

    Moderator: The issue before us is, 'how can we make more money?' Ideas?

    Newbie Engineer: By making high-quality, reliable printers, with reasonably-priced parts and ink?

    Everybody Else: (Uproarious laughter)

    1. mostly average
      Trollface

      Re: At the Printer Manufacturers' Association Roundtable

      Two words, fellow proprietary pigment purveyors; AI INK!

      I have no idea what it means, but first to trademark it wins!

      1. Ken Shabby Silver badge
        Angel

        Re: At the Printer Manufacturers' Association Roundtable

        Does pigment contain oink?

  11. simonlb Silver badge
    Meh

    My Canon Is Still OK

    My Canon inkjet still prints ok using the third party cartridges I've been getting from Amazon for the past three years, although the front panel keeps reminding me there is a firmware update available on the server, but I just cancel the message each time. I recently changed three of the cartridges as they were empty and found that text printing was fine but photos were awful. After a bit of faffing around I confirmed it was the printer and not the Linux and Windows PC's in the house, so I tried a deep clean on the print head which fixed the issue. Was a little bit concerned for a few minutes until the though of trying a little maintenance occurred.

    It's looking like Canon or Epson are some of the few printer manufacturers still respecting their customers.

    1. kmorwath

      Re: My Canon Is Still OK

      It's the Gilette business model. I understand they want to make money from consumables, but they want to make too much money. And in the past four years inks had crazy price increase, the inks for my Canon photo printer went from about 50 to 80 for the 5-pack box (two different boxes needed for the full 10-inks set).. That's a 60% increase - far higher than inflation.

      It is true third-party inks have less costs - often they recycle used cartridges because they can't make new ones (one of the reason I avoid them for photo printing), or make cheapr ones, but the price delta really looks to big. It looks they are offsetting the smaller printing market by increasing consumables costs. And the lose customers both for inks and new printers, if the costs become too high.

  12. Zippy´s Sausage Factory

    Rossmann also noted that Brother's support recommended switching to OEM toner to deal with quality issues, although that sounds an awful lot like a scripted step in a tech support fault tree: "Is the customer complaining about print quality using official products?"

    To be fair, if they're not made by Brother how do they know the composition of the ink? They could be knock offs refilled by some Del Boy off the market who grabbed a couple of bottles of Quink from W H Smith and thinks he's now an IT mogul...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Lies about ink mixed with a side of racism.

      Go away.

      1. Ian Johnston Silver badge

        Where, precisely, did you see racism? My guess is that the "Del Boy" reference went over your head.

        1. Darr3n

          I was just about to point out the same, suspect someone as never heard of, or watched, 'Only Fools & Horses' before, I don't see any Racism in the post.

        2. IGotOut Silver badge

          It's just another AC troll factory bot.

          Reg, can we just get rid of AC accounts now, given that 99% of them are now just troll accounts?

          Or do we have to allow for people that think the handle is their real name?

          1. Throatwarbler Mangrove Silver badge
            Devil

            Or perhaps you should have to have a certain number of posts under your belt before you're allowed to post AC (bronze badge?). I occasionally post AC because I mention events from my past which could identify an employer or me personally, which is important because I know that I have past coworkers who read El Reg.

            The AC troll infestation has definitely gotten worse, which appears to correlate with a certain tangerine twatwaffle entering public office again.

            1. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge

              Exactly this. Plus there are some right whack-jobs here in the comments section who I really don't want to have any personally identifying information about me, so if I'm including something like that in a post, it's AC.

            2. Dante Alighieri
              Holmes

              Fleeting Badges

              Whilst your suggestion has merit, some badges come and go - like my bronze.

              I also agree that there are times it is necessary if you are posting close to the employment knuckle. I've done that too.

              Perhaps a % would work, with some absolute thresholds. It should be possible to register (no pun intended) and make a few topic relevant posts on a single/couple of threads. Beyond that, some accrual of kudos may be necessary - number of posts, up votes, down votes

              [edit for spelling]

    2. N Tropez

      Which? does - or did, I haven't checked recently - surveys and rankings of third party inks. I chose one from the top of the list for my Canon printer (USB connection only) and the ink's been fine. A subscription is needed.

      1. Zippy´s Sausage Factory

        I do love Which. There are counterfeits on the market though, which is annoying. The amount I print a subscription would basically be a total waste of money, to be honest.

  13. Woodnag

    [Brother's US limb did, however, tell Ars Technica: "We are aware of the recent false claims suggesting that a Brother firmware update may have restricted the use of third-party ink cartridges. Please be assured that Brother firmware updates do not block the use of third-party ink in our machines."]

    The complaint wasn't that third-party ink was blocked... just the performance deliberately downgraded in that case.

  14. Alan Brown Silver badge

    Why bother?

    Given the cost of laser printers and the fact that seldom-used inkjets end up with serious quality issues (crystallised ink in the jets) which usually require ink-heavy purge routines(*), why would anyone bother with buying inkjets in this day and age unless they have very specific use cases?(**)

    (*) Going heavy on the purge routine is a staple go-to for manufacturers when non-OEM cartridges are detected. No print quality issues but your cheap cartridges have to be replaced N times more often than the OEM ones

    (**) Usually cases which justify continuous ink systems and commercial grade printers anyway. The consumer printers are mostly nasty toys and have been for a while.

    The rise of tablets and phablets has seen a "need" for printing to fall off a cliff. These days it's mostly for long term archival use and ink is an expensive way to do that

    1. kmorwath

      Re: Why bother?

      Canon in the past months delivered two new photo printers, the prosumer imagePROGRAF 310 and the professional 1100. That's a use case you forgot about - strangely. there's still a market for printed images.

  15. WolfFan

    i just had a little chat with Brother

    The drone on the chat went on and on and on about the 'superior' quality of Brother supplies, totally ignoring me when I said that I used Brother supplies, I was just concerned about price increases. I suspect that I have made my last Brother purchase. Anyone know anything about the Canon MF653Cdw?

  16. CountCadaver Silver badge

    brother has been pushing a toner subscription for a while....

    Hence my brother colour laser has for almost a year been blocked from accessing the internet (static IP and router set to deny internet access to that IP address - one use for avm parental controls lol)

    I figured this was afoot, note the brother USA statement DOESN'T reference the claims about colour registration or degraded print quality and instead deflects by saying it doesn't block printing (which isn't the allegation being made)

    Doublespeak at work?

  17. b1k3rdude

    False they say...

    Yesterday a friend's MFC-L2750DW refused to print until we went into task manager and killed the 'Brother Utilities' application that had been running. As it because obvious it had been 'intercepting' print jobs from windows. After the program had been killed, all the print jobs that were being artificially held up, suddenly started printing...!!!

    I have an MFC-L2710DW, but I have mind plugged in via USB and I do not and have NEVER allowed the 'Brother Utilities' application to run in the background as I don’t need the clutter. And even I had allowed it to run in the background, it would have been blocked from accessing the net by default. TLDR, you don't need the Brother Utilities' application running to print or scan. And what ever you DO NOT allow the Brother Utilities' application to access the internet.

    So to Brother, I call bullsh1t. You bunch of money grabbing sanctimonious sh1ts. Carry on denying the truth, carry on trying to gaslight your customers, and see where is fc*king gets you.

  18. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge

    Does anyone know the domain / path that Brother's printers check for firmware updates, so I can add it to my Pi-hole?

    1. Richard 12 Silver badge

      Just block the printer

      It's got no reason to see the outside world, so don't let it.

  19. cd

    The issue...

    Is not with supplies, but MBAs.

    UPENN is mightier than the sword.

  20. frankvw Bronze badge
    Unhappy

    Not just printer consumables

    While printer ink and toner cartridges are notorious (and rightly so) the problem also applies to replacement parts.

    I have a Dell Inspiron laptop. The battery didn't last a year, even though 99% of the time I used the laptop while it was plugged in. The premature decrepitude of the battery was not covered by the warranty, since I couldn't prove it wasn't normal wear-and-tear.

    When I obtained a quote for an original Dell replacement battery, the price came close to half the price of the entire laptop. Which was obviously ridiculous. So I tried a third-party battery. At that point I discovered that Dell batteries contain a chip that serves no other purpose than to provide the BIOS with the information that the battery is a Genuine Dell Product <tm>. A third party battery doesn't have that chip, so the laptop simply refuses to charge it.

    Dell's official response is that third party batteries can't be trusted and will probably explode as soon as they are plugged in, so this is a very important safety feature. I kid you not, that's what they say. They stick some code in the BIOS that is specifically designed to prevent me from using a third-party battery, but that's only because they are so deeply concerned about my safety.

    Safety, my brown asterisk! The cells I've found in third party battery packs are, by and large, of the same quality or better than what Dell puts in their products, and I have yet to encounter any problems. Except with this Dell laptop that has been rigged to enforce the use of ridiculously overpriced Dell battery packs when the shoddy rubbish they ship with their products conk out.

    The whole industry is riddled with practices like this. The problem is as old as Compaq tweaking firmware in the 1990s so that regular SCSI controllers wouldn't work in some of their servers (SCSI controllers, NICs, etc.) unless you ordered the "Compaq version" from a certified Compaq supplier at several times the price.

    Printer ink is just the tip of the iceberg.

    1. 42656e4d203239 Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Not just printer consumables

      >>The battery didn't last a year, even though 99% of the time I used the laptop while it was plugged in

      err - that is a very easy way to break a laptop battery (unless that one has a charge limit you can set). Best use for LiON batteries is charge to 80%, let run back to 20% and charge again to 80% (or so I am told; I aim to do that but my 7 year old Acer is still on its first battery despite my best efforts to forget to unplug it about 1:10 times I plug it in)

      But the rest of your post is straight up dope. I guess you could just buy cells and solder/weld them into the old Dell battery pack...

      We had Dells here which broke batteries because people couldn't resist plugging them in... but they are old enough that the BIOS doesn't care about who made the battery pack (School innit? things ain't old/obsolete till they are FUBAR)

  21. MachDiamond Silver badge

    I use OEM

    I have an older HP printer I've had for years and use HP cartridges in it. I tried some aftermarket units and they were really poor. I have a brand new cartridge in the supply closet and when that one gets installed, I'll put up my search of eBay for another OEM cart in a factory sealed box. They come up often enough and I don't print so much that a new cart won't last for a good year, so I have time to search.

    I'm not fussed with paying a reasonable price for a printer and reasonable prices for quality toner cartridges. It looks really bad when the HP cart is well over $100 and an aftermarket version is less than $50. Why couldn't HP, with their greater economy of scale and quality, not be able to sell replacements for ~$60. I may have Scottish blood, but I'm not going to try and save $10 taking a chance on some fly-by-night toner cart. Wow, I'd save $0.003 per page if it prints the promised number of pages (yeah, right).

  22. Michael Hoffmann Silver badge
    Meh

    Ugh. I've never knowingly updated my firmware at all, since I threw out the HP and got the Brother close on a decade ago. It *is* networked, but foolish me, I had hope that a device that "old" would predate automatic updates.

    How would I tell? What's the naughty firmware version in questions (suspect it varied by model)? Will I have to add it to the blacklist, just like my Samsung TV which I expect would have otherwise started to shove ads right into my Kodi-based stream by now?

  23. KimJongDeux

    As a former Brother home office user ... I have an irrelevant observation. Namely, that the colour printer was as likely to reject authentic Brother toner and parts as inauthentic knock-offs

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Time to ditch Brother?

    My latest printer is a Brother because I ditched HP due to their crappy business practices. I guess I'll be looking for another vendor before long.

  25. Conundrum1885

    Hacking skills

    I too (many years ago) did the whole resetting trick with a little yellow turd (tm) using pogo pins.

    Interestingly the failure mode on my printer was actually a ribbon cable issue and not repairable.

    Did look into this, seems that the expiry date on at least pre-2006 units can be worked around by

    taking out a coin cell battery thus 'fooling' the printer into accepting that cartridge.

    Supposedly there is a patch for bad ribbon cables, what you do is swap ends and 'bend' the bad end

    so it makes contact as typically there is a miniscule crack in one or more of the flex cables.

    Its barely worth it but someone with an antique may have a use for this.

  26. Peshman

    Sod em!

    *cough*

    Thursday 11th April 2024 15:24 GMTPeshman

    Re: This feels like an own goal...

    I ditched HP for an Epson EcoTank model. Ok, so 300 quid is a bit steep for an inkjet MFD but it came with 6000 pages of ink (Colour and B/W) and a replacement set of refills costs a whopping £30.63 for Epson branded or £16.14 (Amazon prime pricing)...and a 3 year warranty.

    HP can do one!

  27. Aldnus

    Every printer loses money whe sold in todays market

    The cost of parts and manufacturing processes, shipping etc. and the retail value of the printers now means most printers will lose money. Print device companies according to HP in the past don't sell printers they sell Toner the Print device is just a means of getting the product on to the paper/Medium.

    Still doesn't make it right to restrict the use of non OEM Ink/Toner. Sadly we aren't paperless yet, its only been on the cards since 1988 where companies tried to go full paperless, then i believe only Scania managed it at the time (didnt end well for SAAB).

  28. EricB123 Silver badge

    Don't Need no Stinkin' Printer

    Where I live, they charge 5 cents a page to print. No need to buy a bulky printer, paper and ink/ toner.

  29. Displacement Activity

    Or... just let it call home?

    You're not going to like this. My Brother MFC is on the pseudo-DMZ (between the office firewall and the router firewall), and calls home, and updates itself, constantly.

    Every 3 months I get invoiced - 1.9p (UK pence) mono, 12.4p colour. The toner turns up automatically in the post when it's low.

    Why? Because I've spent 25-odd years buying lasers and laboriously calculating cost-per-page, and most of the time the cost was way above this (sometimes 18-20p). Life is way too short to be worrying about whether your toner is good enough, whether Brother's updating your firmware, sourcing another toner supplier, placing orders, counting pages, whatever. I've got better things to do. Not right now, obviously.

  30. macaroo

    The Register article talks about toner cartridges, which is a laser printer term. The video talks about ink jet cartridges.

  31. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

    I still prefer Brother for my laser printing (even if it's a massive colour printer).

    Guess I won't update the firmware though (not that I usually do).

    "Please be assured that Brother firmware updates do not block the use of third-party ink in our machines"

    Blocking and degrading isn't the same thing, however. I used cheap toner in my Brother colour laser. I noticed the high (electrical) tension wires needed a clean (banding evident).

    Canon for inkjet printing.

    (But my 20 year old pigment Epson prints still hold up. So that's worth pondering. I can't say iIkject tech has moved on much.)

  32. Johnr

    Add Epson to that list .

    They did a firmware update that blocked the aftermarket , so $79 instead of $29 for a set

    I bought an older used one on Ebay for $30 bucks and disabled/ignore the firmware so I can use up all the cartridges I have

  33. A Long Fellow

    I've had good luck with Oki C6xx and C7xx color lasers, purchased off-lease. Large, heavy, and the office lights briefly dim when the motors start to churn, but none of this phoning home nonsense. Most toner works without complaint, though my source freely replaces the odd cart that doesn't. Not sure of newer models.

    By comparison, SWMBO's HP multifunction inkjet is an unmitigated PoS. Won't do third-party toner, needs a new driver installation every couple of weeks, and phones home sporadically. Probably a good thing that the axe is inconveniently off in the garage when this happens.

  34. Grunchy Silver badge

    Don't let them do updates!

    "Updates" are notorious for deleting functionality in order to make customers pay again to buy (RENT!) the same functionality back.

    You know for a fact this is happening when they block you from reversing any "update".

    I swear, "the cloud" has come to mean nothing but manufacturers doing secret communications to sabotage their own products... MY PERSONAL PROPERTY!

    They try to sanitize what they're doing by invoking an image of puffy nimbus cloud. But what it really is, is a toxic sooty belch of burned diesel smoke.

    Or more accurately... think Steven King "The Mist". An opaque haze full of hidden monsters that come out of nowhere & rip your guts out!

  35. BenDwire Silver badge
    Angel

    Give your old friends a hug

    Reading all these comments has made me realise how much I appreciate my old Laserjet 6p. 25 years old, genuine cartridge (off fleabay) and fed with decent quality paper. A bit of minimal maintainence to keep it clean inside and it just keeps on going. Admittedly it's had an ethernet server fitted (PrintSir) to make it available to everyone, but it really is a great little machine.

    I really must say thank you to it more often ...

  36. hayzoos

    My printing experience

    TLDR; Canon multifunction inkjet seems OK for the moment, Samsung also sold out to HP, I always printed minimally and had unique solutions.

    Work: Buyer found Canon multifuncion inkjet fits the bill. My annoyance is driver proliferation, every model variance needs a different driver no matter how similar the printers or model numbers look. Seem to do well otherwise and take a beating.

    Home: Current is an old Samsung multifunction laser flatbed scanner (& unused fax) SXC-3405W. It does not phone home and no Windows machine to help it do so. I have updated the firmware a couple of times, but stopped when I found the next would be hostile to non-OEM consumables. That may have been near the time Samsung handed the printer division over to HP. It still chugs along. Early built-in WiFi era printer also has USB-B.

    The SCX-3405W replaced a ML-1740 laser only Samsung. That is also still going strong, I just installed a driver in daughter's Windows 11 laptop (she needs Windows for a work software requirement). Win11 cannot find the driver on its own. The ML-1740 has never had a firmware upgrade, I do not know if it has the "feature" of consumer upgrade-ability. The reason I replaced this printer was Windows (I was a user at the time) dropped support for the flatbed scanner I had and the manufacturer played along. USB-B and Centronics era printer. I would still be using it had I not found the printer/scanner at a good price.

    Prior I had two inkjet printers which I deemed to be crap, did not last long, so much trouble with ink, not worth the effort just to have color.

    Before that I had a 9-pin and later a 24-pin dot-matrix. This is when my printing needs had dropped so low that I had taken to storing the ribbon cartridge sealed in plastic wrap in the freezer. I would take it out to acclimate prior to unsealing and then print, and put it back in cold storage for months or a year between printing.

    Way back in my Apple //c ownership era, I sourced a serial interface thermal printer intended for the IBM-PCjr. It could use fax paper or the paper for and Apple thermal printer. A copier would produce an excellent copy from the thermal printout for a longer lasting and not curled document to turn in homework at college.

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