Brother Accused of Locking Down Third-Party Printer Ink Cartridges Via Forced Firmware Updates (tomshardware.com) 39
Fabled RepairTuber and right-to-repair crusader Louis Rossmann accuses Brother of implementing forced firmware updates that block third-party ink cartridges and remove older firmware versions from support portals. These updates also prevent color calibration with aftermarket ink, rendering cheaper cartridges unusable. Tom's Hardware reports: As mentioned in the intro, Rossmann has seen two big issues emerge for Brother printer users with recent firmware updates. Firstly, models that used to work with aftermarket ink, might refuse to work with the same cartridges in place post-update. Brother doesn't always warn about such updates, so Rossmann says that it is important to keep your printer offline, if possible. Moreover, he reckons it is best to keep your printers offline, and "I highly suggest that you turn off your updates," in light of these anti-consumer updates. Another anti-consumer problem Rossmann highlights affects color devices. He cites reports from a Brother MFP user who noticed color calibration didn't work with aftermarket inks post-update. They used to work, and if the update doesn't allow the printer to calibrate with this aftermarket ink the cheaper carts become basically unusable.
Making matters worse, and an aspect of this tale which seems particularly dastardly, Rossmann says that older printer firmware is usually removed from websites. This means users can't roll back when they discover the unwanted new 'features' post-update. While he admittedly can't do much about these printer industry machinations, Rossmann says it feels important to document these changes which show that property rights for individuals are disappearing. Additional info about Brother's issues are available on Rossmann's wiki.
Making matters worse, and an aspect of this tale which seems particularly dastardly, Rossmann says that older printer firmware is usually removed from websites. This means users can't roll back when they discover the unwanted new 'features' post-update. While he admittedly can't do much about these printer industry machinations, Rossmann says it feels important to document these changes which show that property rights for individuals are disappearing. Additional info about Brother's issues are available on Rossmann's wiki.
NOOOOOOO! (Score:2)
Seriously can 2025 get any worse?
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously.
Brother has had a treasured spot in the IT pantheon for decades. My frigging Grandfather, who had been a mainframe sysadmin in the 1970s used to sing their praises "Good reliable singaporean technology" (He had a love of the singaporeans, I guess he wasn't so concerned about their supiciously authoritarian govt, I guess he was of that generation...) he'd say. That love has been shared by IT techs ever since, 40-50 years maybe, largely because they DIDNT enforce this nonsense on customers.
I better
Are there ANY good printers anymore? (Score:2)
Are there ANY manufacturers of inkjets that aren't pulling this BS around 3rd party ink and such?
Re: (Score:3)
The linked Rossmangroup wiki page is specifically discussing Toner cartridges not ink, so this is clearly about Brother Laser printers. Inkjets don't use toner cartridges, and Laserjets don't use ink cartridges. Although I wouldn't count on Brother Inkjets not doing the same thing now or in the future. I would suggest looking at InkTank printers if you have the print frequency to justify it.
Re:Are there ANY good printers anymore? (Score:5, Insightful)
Brother has been my favorite brand of printer precisely because they have avoided this level of evil.
Well, now they have officially joined the ranks of HP, in my list.
Brother, you failed us!
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Are there ANY good printers anymore? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I wish I would have kept mine. Dumbest move I ever made selling it off about 20 yeas ago.
Well dangit (Score:2)
I saw this video yesterday, and it really stings / stinks (stingks?) because I was *just* about to buy a Brother inkjet because they didn't do this BS. Our pre-scam-era HP Deskjet finally died and I need to print stuff. I might still get one, but it's tremendously disappointing to hear. I'll have to look for other brands - I saw a comment on Rossman's video that Konica Minolta printers haven't succumbed yet, but they seem to be pricey business-oriented laser printers, not exactly what I need at home.
Re: (Score:2)
Lack of information.... (Score:2)
I haven't been following printers recently, but have the Epson EcoTank printers gone down this rathole?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
It's the business model for every consumer printer.
Sell the device for the lowest possible price, because up front costs matter most in retail. Make all the profit on the consumables.
It's effectively a subscription service. Especially when you consider most people will leave their printer turned on, where it cleans the print head several times a day by flushing a few pages worth of ink through it. I have a Brother 1050 that does this when I forget to turn it off and it sits there in standby.
If it's been off
Re: (Score:2)
What do you mean by losing OKIdata, that they are not available anymore in US or that they started going the way of subscription? I am asking because I was considering a Brother, I now need a backup plan, so I wanted to know if you'd advise to buy their products.
Crap. (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been a big fan of Brother lasers because they just work(tm).
Now they're pulling this shit?
Aww, Damn! (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
I just literally just about to buy a Brother printer (laserjet, not inkjet, but still). Not now.
The only printers I trust at this point are PostScript printers. That way, there's no driver controlled by the printer vendor that can do sleazy things like upgrade the firmware without my permission. I love my Konica Minolta.
Re: (Score:3)
I get PostScript printers because they work without drivers, in particular on Linux. I also only get networked printers. Made good experiences with OKI b/w laser, but before that Brother b/w laser was ok too.
Re: (Score:2)
I get PostScript printers because they work without drivers, in particular on Linux. I also only get networked printers. Made good experiences with OKI b/w laser, but before that Brother b/w laser was ok too.
Yeah, it goes without saying that non-networked printers are an epic fail.
Re: (Score:2)
I applaud your dedication to Postscript, one my all-time favorite technologies/languages, but in this case, Brother is upgrading the printer's firmware - the software that *runs* the Postscript on the printer itself. The driver on your computer (if any) doesn't have to be altered for them to implement this kind of evil.
Re: Aww, Damn! (Score:3)
PCL works fine. PostScript is not the differentiating factor. Whether or not firmware updates are forced on you is.
Re: (Score:2)
PCL works fine. PostScript is not the differentiating factor. Whether or not firmware updates are forced on you is.
I thought that at least on macOS and Windows, PCL printers required a vendor-specific driver, but maybe not. But yes, in principle, as long as you aren't installing any vendor-specific drivers, you're good.
This, of course, also means using VueScan instead of installing vendor-specific scanner drivers and software, where applicable, but it's invariably a better experience anyway, so no great loss.
Re: (Score:2)
I have a five year old Brother laser printer. Still running aftermarket toner (color) and I don't do the prompted updates. No problem yet.
Annoying, but... (Score:3)
This kind of stunt is pretty underhanded, but if you look at the price of printers, they are crazy low by historical standards. A good laser printer is probably less than 10% of the price it was 25 years ago, inflation adjusted. There's an implicit agreement here that they give you the printer at less than cost and, in return, you pay them by buying the cartridges from them. So, it's hard to get too worked up about this.
Re: (Score:2)
That's an argument for doing this to new models.
Changing the value proposition for existing customers is dirty. Even more by doing it automatically without their consent. No one realised when they auto-clicked the eula that the cartridge they have currently installed and are currently using with no issues is going to be suddenly arbitrarily rejected. That they'll be left with a paper weight until they go out and buy some genuine ink, and discard the perfectly fine ink they already paid for and were already
HP fecality sold a lot of Brothers (Score:2)
I've no reason to recommend them any more.
Printer manufacturers have no reason to care what techies think because we are too few to affect their bottom lines.
Re: (Score:2)
An "open hardware printer" is a complete nonstarter, because it's not economically viable.
This isn't software which has an incremental duplication cost of $0. Hardware costs money to build; as well as the per-unit costs you also have the investment in the tooling and production line (on top of the design/engineering work) that has to be amortized over your production run. Which means the smaller your production run, the more you have to charge to break even.
Oh, and you also need to secure a truly long-ter
We're almost to the Ides, too... (Score:2)
Can you use a generic driver instead? (Score:2)
The obvious alternative which comes to mind is to use a generic printer driver.
Would this work?
Re: (Score:2)
No, because the changes Brother (and others) implement are often done at the firmware level on the printer itself. This often has nothing at all to do with the driver on your computer.
Re: (Score:2)
No, because they've auto-updated the firmware in the printer that communicates with the chip in every cartridge.
You can't go back and install the old firmware because they've removed it from their website.
Brother, you ALMOST had it! (Score:1)
You've built up the foundation of a good reputation. Your products are on the verge of becoming the favorite of a new generation of IT managers for decades to come.
Wake up, roll this back, claim it was a mistake, actually learn from it, and don't blow it for short-term profit.