O, damnit. Not the last bastion of hope!
Edit: 100% serious. Like Rossmann, Brother was the go-to brand.
I’ve been saying that for a couple of years now. They started fucking with third party ink at least a year ago
Damn, Brother was the only company left I was happy to blind purchase from by name alone.
Brother’s been anti-consumer for at least 5 years now. Not sure why people are just learning about it now.
Brother blocking 3rd party toner was the primary reason why I went with Canon back in 2020.
Probably because we all bought printers 10 years ago, or at least I did.
Framework printer.
Make it happen.
dude I would pay gold for that
Not saying they couldn’t/shouldn’t but printers are a nightmare hellscape and it’s a miracle, mostly of HP’s marketing department, that they’re a household object.
Back before everyone had maps on their phone, printing MapQuest maps was fantastic. This was the early 00’s though and we all had money to burn still.
sorry maybe I missed a memo, people are still printing things… like, on paper?
Yup.
I print the occasional random coloring page for my kids. Thats about it.
I personally don’t, on the off chance I do need to print something I do it at work.
Glad I’ve got an Brother laser that has no network connectivity.
Strictly-speaking, in this case, it’s not the ability to be network-connected that’s at issue, but rather the ability to push updates to firmware.
I don’t know what type of computer you have it connected to, but Linux has a system that will automatically update firmware on USB-attached devices if the attached Linux computer is Internet-connected.
$ sudo fwupdtool get-devicesWill show you a list of managed devices.
I’m sure that Windows and MacOS have comparable schemes.
On Linux, I’m sure that you can blacklist a device for updates.
I’d guess that it’s possible to get one of those dedicated USB print servers. Those probably don’t support updating firmware on an attached printer. I might have some questions as to how much I’d trust a no-name one of those on my network itself, but…
Shit. I didn’t even think of that. I’m using fedora. Tomorrow I’ll be blocking firmware updates for the printer. Thank you for pointing that out.
I should qualify that – I don’t know for sure whether and which distros enable updates to run non-interactively.
fwupdhas the ability to do so and it’s billed as doing so on its github page, but that doesn’t mean that a distro has to actually take advantage of that. Could be that in a default configuration on a given distro, it only updates stuff next time you invoke it.The only reason I’d guess that it might not run automatically is that some devices do not deal well with power loss during firmware updates, and I can imagine that a distro – which has no way of knowing when a user might start flipping power switches – might want more-conservative settings. Might be something like the last bit of distro installation, but they might not want to run during normal operation.
But yeah, I bet that Louis Rossman didn’t think of that either when he was talking about using USB connectivity to prevent firmware updates.
EDIT: I also vaguely remember reading something claiming that smart TVs from some manufacturer that are not connected to the Internet were using nearby smart TVs of the same brand and within WiFI range that can reach the Internet for Internet connectivity. Ordinarily, I’d say that that’s not generally an issue for most devices, but printers often do have wireless networking capability, so probably one more at least theoretical vector via which a printer might potentially reach the Internet. I have not read any claims of a printer doing this, though. I also don’t know whether-or-not those claims for the smart TVs were legitimate, but they are technically-possible to do, so…shrugs
I didn’t even know he had a brother.
Not sure if I got the update yet, but I’m banning my printer from accessing the internet right now.
Epson Ecotanks. Liquid ink in, prints out. There’s nothing to lock out.
Only if you can keep it working for ten consecutive minutes. I went through three of them under warranty until my warranty expired, then Epson told me to fuck off.
If have a Canon color laser now. If that conks out and everything on the market by then is locked out shit I’ll just convert my 3D printer to a plotter, or maybe go back to clay tablets.
We need an open source RepRap printer. Like, I wonder if this thing could be reverse engineered, given they still make the ink cartridge/head units for it.
What we actually need is to stop fucking printing.
We need a foldable A3 size e-ink reader that you can use like a folder.I’d be more interested in something more iPad sized with an e-ink display that is more generally usable.
The ReMarkable tablets for example have interesting hardware but the software fits such a narrow use case and I don’t think you could slap like, Linux on it or something.
Oh, color laser is the way to go, for sure. Refills are expensive, but rare; the biggest problem is if you have to move them, they’re a nightmare. And far heavier than inkjet. But, all things being equal, I’d take a color, duplex laser any day.
You’re not the first person I’ve heard who’s had trouble with Ecotanks. I’ve been very fortunate and have not had any issues. I did learn that you need to print at least once a week or the heads tend to clog; the downside of never replacing the heads with the cartridges, I guess. But now I just have a cron job that prints a test page once a week and it’s fine.
Both Ecotanks and laser eliminate that “print anxiety”, where you’re afraid to use the device because each page costs $2 because of the cartridges costs.
To paraphrase Quint: “I’ll never replace a cartridge again.”
Canon has a tank printer line too. Absolutely recommend any tank printer (you’ll have to check reviews for specifics obviously).
My Canon photo printer can be converted to a tank-style with a drill and a highly illegal cartridge resetter. 😂
Old printers on ebay are going to be the new game, until we start seeing kickstarter flooded with new printer companies.
I want to agree, but has there ever been a case of the free market saving itself?
Maybe I’m wrong, but I think it will just be cycles (assuming we all survive long enough). I’m in an industry where the large companies are imploding and smaller companies are starting to shine again, eventually those companies will likely become big as well and implode.
I’ve always promoted commercial inktank printers for people who do a lot of printing, and people always mentioned Brother as a response, but tbh I’ve never really hopped on the bandwagon to shill for any particular company.
Just a good commercial inktank printer. A regular printer with all the bells and whistles is going to cost you like $100 and $45 for each ink pack you buy, you might as well just spend $450 on a printer, write it off as home office expense, and call it good.
Now i had to put on the in-ears, hook up to phone to… listen to a guy talking. -_-
Short summary: after he got a firmware update, the MFC 3750 of Louis Rossman prints in worse quality with aftermarket ink.
Click the wiki link
So laser ones are safe (for now)?
Go with a bottle printer, or at least a laser and get a standalone scanner for USB. Cartridges suck, literally, all-in-ones even moreso.
I have a Brother MFC-9340CDW that I salvaged from work last year; we replaced it because it kept getting a ghost “paper jam” every time you tried to print something. Turns out the cause is an $18 board that’s known to fail. Scanner still works fine though, strangely.
I also have a Kyocera FS-3900DN b&w laser printer from 2006…or somewhere around there. It does the thing, and can even be managed with a CUPS server since it has 10/100 networking.
Now to figure out how to disable automatic firmware updates on the Brother 🤔
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