We seriously need a FOSS+FOSH printer
Brother accused of locking down third-party printer ink cartridges via forced firmware updates, removing older firmware versions from support portals
Submitted 1 year ago by misk@sopuli.xyz to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
MITM0@lemmy.world 1 year ago
hera@feddit.uk 1 year ago
It’s really surprising this doesn’t already exist. It’s such a hated piece of tech, I would have thought someome would have thought they could do better! I don’t know enough to do it myself but I’d sure as hell support a project to do it!
bitjunkie@lemmy.world 1 year ago
In my experience, people who are aware of open source and the like are also people who only print something when they absolutely HAVE to.
Wispy2891@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It will cost too much because they can’t get back R&D money back via sales of proprietary ink and spare parts, plus competitors will immediately take advantage of your improvements
Like a prusa (open source 3d printer) costs like 3 bambulab (walled garden closed source 3d printer that uses a fork of prusa slicer)
DesertHermit@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It’s not, though. Printers are actually fairly expensive to manufacture, and they’re sold heavily subsidized by the companies in order to sell you a decade of printer cartridges where you make up for that loss. It was the first tech subscription model.
If someone made and sold a shitty inkjet printer at cost, the last time I saw something written up on this years ago, it was several times more than the current cost of printers. And consumers are stupid, so they will go for the immediate cheap thing and get locked in to buying proprietary cartridges rather than invest in saving money long term.
What we need is a Graphine OS for existing printers. A repo of firmware updates that anyone can install to jailbreak a handfull of widely sold printers to allow printing every drop of ink, and DIY refills. Let’s be real, we’re not a huge part of their market, so IMO the gains are to exist like wolves preying on the occasional sheep, rather than be wolves that try to evolve thumbs and force everyone to learn how to cook and go shopping in order to eat.
MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
1000x this.
We’ve got all this figured out for 3D printers with all kinds of cool tools to make the job easier, and yet, take away a dimension and there’s crickets?
The hell?
Let’s make a 3D printable 2D printer.
MITM0@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Or a modular printer
MisanthropiCynic@lemm.ee 1 year ago
They deny it was the firmware update. But not that something else has happened
I’ve had issues with colour but not B&W
wowwoweowza@lemmy.world 1 year ago
So… when there is some controversy over an article in Lemmy it gets the strike though? How did this evolve?
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
You can edit the title, so if you want to strike through it, go ahead.
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 1 year ago
If you read the article:
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.
So there’s no reason to leave an inflammatory and likely wrong title unchanged or otherwise without notation. The title is completely readable. I’m all for wrong information being flagged, and a strikethrough is a fine method of doing so.
wowwoweowza@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Totally agree. Just the first time I have seen the notation.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
We don’t know if it’s wrong though, we just have a statement from the company claiming it is. Now it’s on the community to prove it.
It’s potentially wrong. I guess we’ll see in the coming weeks as people try to prove it one way or another.
bss03@infosec.pub 1 year ago
I see editability as generally an improvement, especially since the older versions are still visible with a couple of clicks. Reddit titles are not editable. Tweets used to be uneditable; toots are.
match@pawb.social 1 year ago
Anyone have recommendations on thermal printers?
T156@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Any particular reason for going thermal? Personally, I’d recomnend against them, since thermal paper is coated with BPA, and that can come off and might have health effects if ingested.
pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
I think it’s because thermal requires no ink.
MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Why thermal? Seems odd, but alright.
I recommend laser for just about everyone.
Don’t print much? Get a laser. Otherwise you’re ink will dry out and you’ll have to get new ink every time you want to print.
Print a lot? Laser. Super reliable, can do tens of thousands of sheets before there’s a problem, maybe more.
In fact, the only time I’d recommend an ink printer is for color accurate work like photo printing, and if you’re not using photo paper for it, then there’s not really much of a point, is there?
I used to think bubble jet/ink jet was the shit, then I started working in IT professionally and discovered the truth.
Just buy a laser printer folks. Don’t bother with all the rest of this shit. If you want/need inkjet, then you already know you need it and why. If you’re not sure, get a laser. You’ll pay wayyyyyy less on materials up keep it running
boonhet@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Don’t print much? Get a laser. Otherwise your ink will dry out and you’ll have to get new ink every time you want to print.
I’ve literally never had this happen and I print so infrequently that if I have to buy a new cartridge, I’ll just… not print at home anymore. Is it really that common?
T156@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Dot matrix is also an option, if they neither want to bother with toner, nor inkjet.
thermal_shock@lemmy.world 1 year ago
My client has a few dozen zebras. Reliable, but cost a little more up front. Some of theirs are 10+ years old, prints thousands of inventory labels a month off each one at each site.
Rin@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Foss printer when?
banazir@lemmy.ml 1 year ago
Unironically, this is why RMS was radicalized.
meme_historian@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
RMS: gestures at GCC and the whole GNU/Linux ecosystem Look man, all I wanted to do was to print this letter to my ma…
BenchpressMuyDebil@szmer.info 1 year ago
Closest I’ve seen was rooting a printer via a security exploit
gutter_angel@lemm.ee 1 year ago
i came across this explanation of it, haven’t verified it directly but he seems to make good content:
youtube.com/shorts/ZX8OaZZDlM8
he says theres identification each time you print using the yellow ink, and basically is a counterfeit currency countermeasure
id kill to have a foss print setup though
echodot@feddit.uk 1 year ago
It’s a feature that can be turned on the confidential documents but I don’t think it’s actually on by default.
You can check for it anyway, just print a document then attempt to scan it, if it’s got the track marks it will refuse to scan because one of the things the track marks do is block scanning, although you can still take a photo of it because the camera probably won’t be able to see the track marks so it’s not 100% secure. In fact it’s largely considered an obsolete security method these days, along with pink flimsies.
Rin@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I know about the yellow dot thingy. Literally metadata on paper for no reason imo. I highly doubt a person could make a realistic fake through the use of a conventional printer.
In the UK, we don’t even have paper money anymore, it’s plastic… Maybe it’s more of a USA skill issue, too?
Lettuceeatlettuce@lemmy.ml 1 year ago
I really hope Brother is telling the truth!
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Same. My printer works fine, and I recently replaced my toner (went genuine because I found a decent deal), so I probably won’t need another anytime soon.
That said, I will no longer be recommending them until this is cleared up. I won’t be recommending against them though, because I don’t know of a better company, but I’ll just recommend people go to their local library or print shop or something and not deal with having a printer at home.
werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I got a 4 acre lot on Mars that I’m selling for cheap. You seem like a gulli…great fellow. $10k. Its pretty cheap right now because people don’t known the real estate trend yet. I’m taking amazon cards.
qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 1 year ago
But this is a weird thing to lie about — the only reason to implement toner DRM is to get people to buy your cartridges. But if your public statement is, “it’s ok to buy off brand cartridges,” then…well… that’s kinda weird.
Not saying you’re wrong, and they could be trying to have their cake and eat it too (court the anti-DRM crowd but also scare people into sticking with their toner). I’m just saying your snarky/sarcastic response seems unwarranted here.
SavageCoconut@lemmy.world 1 year ago
My brother did what!?!?
MisterFrog@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I’m curious how this will go down in Australia. Seems like a pretty solid slam dunk refund, oh the product doesn’t work as advertised anymore?
Cool, I’ve had this for 5 years and now I’d also like a full refund under Australian Consumer Law.
Motherfuckers.
(I don’t actually own a printer)
JackFrostNCola@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I imagine they have some stupid note or sticker somewhere saying “to avoid damaging your printer only use genuine Brother replacement cartridges”.
Then all they have to say is “we patched a bug where unverified 3rd party ink cartriges could erroneously be used and cause malfunction or damage to the product.”MisterFrog@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I found this help article where they say “Although not all non-genuine supplies may cause quality issues”.
They said they recommend using theirs, but up until this they didn’t say you couldn’t.
support.brother.com/g/b/sp/faqend.aspx?c=us_ot&la…
Plus, it’s been universally understood that you have been able to use third-party cartridges. I really think if you’re persistent enough, you’d get a refund in Australia. Because else (in Victoria at least) you could take them to VCAT for like $70, which will cost them wayyy more in lawyer expenses than the price of a refund.
This is not legal advice, but I reckon a refund under Australian Consumer Law is extremely doable if they go down this path (for existing printers).
qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 1 year ago
Brother deny the claims: arstechnica.com/…/brother-denies-using-firmware-u…
Ludrol@szmer.info 1 year ago
It looks like to me as some redditor got bad quality third party ink and blamed it on firmware. Some karma whores picked it up, as dogging on printer companies is sure way to gain some free updoots.
And now Louis Rossmann picked it up and the lie spread further.
We live in a post-truth society.
phoenixz@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
As much as I love the brand, this was just obviously going to happen. It always happens, it’s the eventual outcome. All that is needed is one middle manager wanting to get an extra bones to come up with some short sighted idea that will make a little extra money in the short run and possibly bankrupt the company in the long term.
See Boeing, see Intel, see…
Bakkoda@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
What’s worse is remaining “ethical” in the world of business they exist in is a flat out detractor. A financial hindrance of the utmost.
NutWrench@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I’m only letting my latest Brother printer connect to my computer through the USB cable. No Internet connection at all.
dukatos@lemm.ee 1 year ago
RPi as a printer server, with the printer connected to its USB port. Use FreeBSD on RPi just to make sure…
harsh3466@lemmy.ml 1 year ago
Careful with that you though. I thought the same thing but someone pointed out in another thread that depending on your system, it may update the firmware over USB when you do system updates.
AngryRobot@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Is this happening to toner for their laser printers too?
ChiefGyk3D@infosec.pub 1 year ago
I really wish we had open source 2D printers like we have open source 3D printers. That could solve a lot of the problems I think as we could have an open spec to allow people to do whatever they want. My Prusa doesn’t care what brand filament I want to use, just as long it can drive it, melt it, and lay it down the way I need. Also why is it my 3D printers are more reliable than my 2D printers most days?
letsgo@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Can’t a 3D printer double as a 2D printer? It’d only have to print one “slice”; you’d replace the heated nozzle with some sort of writing stick, hey presto instant plotter!
jaxxed@lemmy.ml 1 year ago
“You were supposed to be the one”
FilthyHookerSpit@lemmy.world 1 year ago
“YOU WERE MEANT TO DESTROY THE COMPETITION, NOT JOIN THEM”
oyzmo@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Any brands left? 🤔😅
SuperSpruce@lemmy.zip 1 year ago
FedEx if you only need to print once in a blue moon…
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Or the library or office supply store.
themaninblack@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Et tu, frater?
lefixxx@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Brother loosing all competitive advantage they had via reputation. Doing a very big 180 and reversing the changes and commiting to not his BS is the only way to undo this
Lightsong@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Losing*
commander@lemmings.world 1 year ago
They must’ve hired some new analysts that said “hey, people are willing to accept less! Why are we doing more?”
It’s up to the people to prove them wrong, but that usually doesn’t happen :\
tjOrb3n@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
Are there more precise informations about affected firmware versions yet? Recently bought a refurbished laser printer and still have a brother toner, but my intent would be to buy aftermarket toners in future.
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 1 year ago
And this is why I’ll never connect my working printer to the internet.
Taking a USB stick to it to print is annoying, but fuck this shit.
They’re all horrible companies
Luffy879@lemmy.ml 1 year ago
Just connect it to a Server (like a raspi) via USB and share the printer through CUPS
Its a little tedious to set up, but it works
nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 1 year ago
This is the way.
Nevermore9197@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Is there a step by step anywhere to achieve this? I’m adept in tech. But don’t have the training or knowledge to just do it
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 1 year ago
How many cups does it take to transfer the printer over?
dan@upvote.au 1 year ago
Why do that when you could just connect it to the LAN and put it on a separate VLAN?
ftbd@feddit.org 1 year ago
What’s stopping you from connecting it to the local network but denying internet access? E.g. via a firewall rule or separate VLAN?
digdilem@lemmy.ml 1 year ago
Thats’s a shame, I always considered brother one of the better makers of paper manglers.
btaf45@lemmy.world 1 year ago
My general rule of thumb is that any software update has a 50% chance of making the software worse. So I don’t update anything without a good reason. That includes not just device updates but things like phone apps.
areyouevenreal@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Yeah this is terrible from a security and usability point of view. Just stop using proprietary bs systems. Why do you think so many technical people use Linux and avoid IoT devices like the plague? So we don’t have to deal with companies doing stuff we don’t like without a choice.
commander@lemmings.world 1 year ago
photonic_sorcerer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
Keeping up-to-date with security updates is incredibly important.
knexcar@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I’ve never had an issue with viruses, I’m not a big company nor do I download sketchy files. I feel like if there’s something serious enough to affect me (like the iPhone Unicode character exploit), I’d hear about it.
Ledericas@lemm.ee 1 year ago
ink printers are total scams, you might as well use a printing shop or library to do it, if you are planning on printing large number of pages. we got a canon laser jet printer, only need toner cartridge.
joenforcer@midwest.social 1 year ago
The printers in the article are using toner. The title is misleading.
Cocopanda@futurology.today 1 year ago
I too watched Louis Rossman’s YouTube video to author.
redbr64@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Fuck I just got rid of my 2008 BW laser brother and bought a new one that hasn’t arrived. Thanks for the warning, at least I will be able to set my firewall before I even connect it to my network
AlecSadler@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Going to be honest, didn’t realize my Brother laser printer got firmware updates, lol.
In 7 years I’ve replaced the toner cartridge once, given that the stater cartridge isn’t very full I imagine it’ll be awhile before I have to replace it again, at least.
noxypaws@pawb.social 1 year ago
These motherfuckers are actively making tech as a whole less secure by destroying any trust the public may have had in firmware updates.
Urgent security fixes are gonna go unpatched on a lot of shit because consumers are seeing more and more firmware or software updates actively making things WORSE.
btaf45@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Urgent security fixes are gonna go unpatched
I don’t understand why a printer would ever need an “urgent security fix”.
grrgyle@slrpnk.net 1 year ago
Any networked device can be used to gain access to the rest of the network (kind of).
ookiiBoy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
… Because products can contain security exploits, and if not patched could leave homes and businesses vulnerable.
This shouldn’t need to be explained, but here we are.
SacralPlexus@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Definitely true. I’ve been putting off an upgrade of my NAS because they have randomly decided to completely remove the video streaming software that came with it when I bought it. So infuriating.
prinzmegahertz@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Tell me you are using synology without telling me you are using synology
ookiiBoy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
That sucks.
IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
Proton, Mozilla, Brother
Its not gonna stop there
😓
x4740N@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Buy an ecotank printer, they’re more expensive initially but that’s because they actually make you pay for the printer
Ecotank’s use liquid ink that you fill in tanks instead of cartridges
There’s no way they can check the ink on ecotank printers