Brother accused of locking down third-party printer ink cartridges
322 comments
·March 5, 2025WarOnPrivacy
ohgr
I never let my printer near the Internet. It goes on the "fucking trash" subnet which has no route out. Mine's an HP but it complains occasionally that it can't get new firmware which makes me feel warm inside.
Brian_K_White
Still have to be careful, they have another method where an update is delivered as a print job (that doesn't print anything). So also don't let any windows or mac (or android or ios or chromebook I guess) clients reach the printer by any means, even usb, with drivers you aren't 100% sure about.
throw10920
That's devious and evil. Do you have further details about the mechanics? e.g. if it's delivered by JavaScript embedded in a PDF then maybe one could introduce a proxy that strips that out.
mcv
This sounds like circumventing home network security measures and therefore illegal.
waltbosz
> method where an update is delivered as a print job
I wonder if this is a way to install custom firmware. Probably not. I would guess that the code that decodes the firmware from the print job probably passes it through the same signature check code as the regular firmware update process.
Still it's an interesting route for exploit exploration.
knowitnone
why own a printer if you can't even connect to it to print?
account42
Android and iOS don't support printer drivers so should be safe, no?
aqueueaqueue
Eventually we get to the point we let nothing near the internet!
zecg
I have doubled my battery life on Moto Edge with Rethink DNS, blocking everything per app. There's so much junk I don't want to phone home that tries 50 times a day.
HenryBemis
And why should we? It should all be "allow" and not "block". Machine should be serving _us_ the buyers/users.
I could never understand why my Windows Explorer (back in the ZoneAlarm days) were speaking to Microsoft when I was searching for my FileName.doc inside my C: Drive.
I could understand the Word or Excel accessing when I need "Help" (I assume online help file was more frequently updated).
No! Naughty developers and naughty businesses. My machines should leave my 127.0.01 when I want for MY uses and MY needs and MY convenience.
For vast majority of home users the only app that needs to 'get out' is their browser and their "windows udpate". Everything else is just tracking.
lukan
Good luck with soldered on LTE modems.
DoingIsLearning
My reply is low value for HN but your comment is the literal embodiment of an older meme:
- Tech Enthusiasts: Everything in my house is wired to the Internet of Things! I control it all from my smartphone! My smart-house is bluetooth enabled and I can give it voice commands via Alexa! I love the future!
- Programmers / Engineers: The most recent piece of technology I own is a printer from 2004 and I keep a loaded gun ready to shoot it if it ever makes an unexpected noise.
P.S. More seriously I agree, we witnessed multiple times over the enshitification that inevitably follows.
j1elo
We have this saying in Spanish "en casa del herrero, cuchillo de palo" (the blacksmith rather uses wooden-made knifes at home), meaning that when you're an insider to some of the nasty things that are part of certain products, you'll end up wanting to avoid it altogether. And in a sector as unregulated and wild regarding user protections as is the technology and software world, no surprise lots of engineers know that things look grim when you know the secrets of how they're done.
LinuxBender
You jest but my first experience with this were Compuserve CD's in the 90's. I saw my hard drive light blinking when I did not ask the computer to do anything so I killed the power then powered on, ejected the CD and threw it into the trash. Ever since that experience I've been highly skeptical of any program and vindicated hundreds of times since.
sellmesoap
I had an ARM win11 tablet that constantly cycled my ancient printer with the $11 2000 page toner. A firewall between the tablet and the printer was the answer.
throw_pm23
I think the midwit meme captures this best, where at both ends of the IQ bell curve the characters say "I hate technology", and the guy in the middle loves it.
a-french-anon
I went even more radical, personally: got a DCP-L2510D that simply doesn't have WiFi/Ethernet, only USB. Both scanning and printing work perfectly via CUPS and I'm happy as one can be.
throwawayqqq11
Maybe i can help against that warmth ;)
Could some rogue javascript establish a connection from your browser to your printer?
ohgr
Oh don't :)
I'm actually worried that some newer smart devices might be set up to use well known public wifi services that are available from consumer routers.
Just sitting here I have public "EE Wifi X" and "BT Internet" which it could connect to if configured at the factory to do that.
Then I am boned.
marcosdumay
Maybe, but it has been a lot harder than doing the trivial thing for a few years already.
If it can, it's a vulnerability that has to be fixed.
rkagerer
Rouge as in red, or as in rogue?
dtgriscom
Ah, the joys of thwarting a piece of hardware.
abcd_f
Same. I just don't set the default gateway when configuring it.
mschuster91
I dont see this that positive. As long as your computer has access to it, malware can exploit vulnerabilities in the firmware to achieve persistence.
viraptor
These are Amazon ranges. You're most likely blocking random aws load balancers including more than just brother servers. Also the brother servers can be redeployed at any point. It's likely better to prevent the dns name resolution instead.
hyperman1
I'd suggest switching from a blacklist to a whitelist mindset. In this case, allow the printer only access to the local network.
account42
I'd be even more paranoid and connect the printer via USB only. You can then run your own print server if you want to support printing from multiple devices.
codedokode
The printer might be using encrypted DNS.
viraptor
Very unlikely. At least not without a fallback. Lots of corps will not allow encrypted dns because they want good traffic monitoring for threat detection. It may be an option, but it almost certainly won't be enforced.
jchw
Barring a particularly good reason, I reckon your best bet is to just block internet access from the printer altogether. I can't think of a good reason why it should have internet access.
gregncheese
Scanning directly to a share folder? Scanning and sending to an email address.
jchw
You could come up with a list of features that are plausible but I can't imagine a world where having my scanner send an email would be more convenient than just having a scanned document directly on a computer or phone.
Brother printers can scan to network shares without Internet access. Local networking is plenty.
ohgr
I have never found a reason to do that personally. It seems like an extra step I don't need. I also don't want the printer going near a shared folder and I definitely don't want the printer's true owner (the vendor) to be handling my documents over email!
meindnoch
>Scanning and sending to an email address.
Who's going to be sender of that email?
jerome-jh
I have a Brother inkjet/all-in-one. Of course it never connected to the internet, thanks to a router firewall rule. Actually I only use Brother cartridges for black. They are quite economical and I bought a bunch of them at some point when they were cheap on Amazon.
Now the color cartridges keep draining although we never print in color. So of course I do not fit Brother color cartridges! For that reason and others (very average quality when printing from Linux, takes only high quality 90g paper, heads regularly clogged even with Brother ink, color prints ugly even with Brother ink), I am not satisfied with this product. Unfortunately I still have a few years of black ink to consume before getting rid of it.
FabHK
Thanks, good idea.
I went to my home router (a Fritzbox) and just blocked the printer from accessing the internet (it's under Internet -> Filter, and the printer is named BRW90....). Fairly straightforward - that should be a good enough fix, no?
account42
It's probably enough a truly malicous printer could change the MAC address and device name to get around any such blacklist. Even a MAC-based whitelist is vulnerable to spoofing. To be truly safe you'd need to put the printer on its own lan without an internet connection or not connect it via ethernet/wifi at all.
beached_whale
why does my brother printer need to be online? I dont add it to the allow list at all.
tankenmate
another option you could use is something like routedns[0], this allows you to filter DNS requests (or get them to resolve to 127.0.0.1) and it won't affect other services that might be on the same IP.
account42
Why give the printer internet access at all?
samlinnfer
I want to see this confirmed before we hop into it. I've been using aftermarket toner with Brother all the time and it's working well. All the posts on Louis' wiki (https://wiki.rossmanngroup.com/wiki/Brother_ink_lockout_%26_...) are 2-3 years old and the only primary sources from people on reddit and there are a total of 3 people saying this. He's long winded video adds nothing new, this tomshardware article just repeats what he says in the video.
Literally these are the only three sources I can find of people claiming this:
1. https://www.reddit.com/r/printers/comments/s9b2eg/brother_mf...
2. https://github.com/sedrubal/brother_printer_fwupd/issues/9
philipodonnell
Hi. Maybe anecdotal, Brother MDC-J480DW, had it about 3 years, always bought third party ink, two weeks ago I had to replace the color ones and it started saying there was no ink even though ink was clearly visible, it failed on two different colors from two different sources, and the three different black cartridges, then bought legit from Walmart and worked perfectly. I can’t speak for everyone’s experience, but mine was definitely changed recently to always say third party ink was empty, and I’ll junk it once this ink runs out.
venusenvy47
I've had the MFC-J480DW for many years and have been happy with the cheap generic ink cartridges I've been able to use. I'm getting worried about what I'm reading here. I have it connected by USB to my PC, and I don't know if it gets any updates from the PC.
viraptor
Worth noting that this looks like a different issue. You're reporting high ink level not being accepted, but the other post reports high misalignment.
PennRobotics
I don't know about every Brother model. On ours, there's a key sequence you can press to reset the toner cartridge odometer letting you squeeze out toner until the text is a satisfying light grey.
nazgulsenpai
I use a J480DW and had the EXACT SAME ISSUE last month. Ordered a different brand of aftermarket cartridges and they worked like a charm. Maybe a supplier issue.
jeffdubin
I can confirm this. A Brother HL-L3270CDW color laser worked fine with third-party toner at first, but would not recognize it after a firmware upgrade. I tried three different sets of cartridges, including different brands - none were recognized, and there's no way to revert to a previous firmware version.
That was the last Brother color printer I'll buy, unless they go back to accepting generic toner.
GuB-42
> That was the last Brother color printer I'll buy
What are the alternatives then? Brother is often cited as the brand that is the most tolerant of generic consumables and with the least anti-consumer practices. But now that even Brother plays this game...
grumpysysop
There's a way to rollback the firmware for this family of models, check out on the internets. I did it, and it solved the same issue for me.
grumpysysop
Some useful links I remember using back then:
https://www.reddit.com/r/printers/comments/qcstzv/downgrade_... (in German)
https://github.com/CauldronDevelopmentLLC/oh-brother/issues/...
https://www.reddit.com/r/printers/comments/w60687/comment/ih...
https://www.reddit.com/r/printers/comments/w9bc3g/downdgradi...
mholt
I have that printer, and I was about to buy some third party toner for it (first time). What firmware version disabled third-party toner support? Looks like we have 1.35. I just disabled automatic "check for updates" but maybe it's too late.
schneems
Last time we changed ours (recently, maybe a few months) it gave us a message saying we were using untrusted ink and it now prints a black line down one side of the page. First time I’ve had any issues in years. TBH my first reaction was that it was some kind of intentional effort to degrade the experience.
viraptor
Have you checked with another third party ink to validate that it's not just a single broken cartridge?
MostlyStable
I can add an anecdote that it ("it" being printer stopped functioning when I replaced the cartridge with as 3rd party I've) happened to me and support confirmed that non OEM toner was the issue when I called about it.
Swapping the drm chip from the oem starter cartridge to my 3rd party cartridge resolved the othe problem
varispeed
I tried that with mine, swapped chips from original Brother toner set to the aftermarket one and it didn't work.
gblargg
...until the starter cartridge's low page count reaches zero (I hope I'm wrong).
MostlyStable
Hasn't happened to me yet, but there are apparently ways if resetting the counter.
noname120
For clarification, is “it” a Brother printer or another brand?
MostlyStable
Yes, two different models (both Brother). Can't remember the model numbers right now, but a simple black and white printer, and a black and white + scanner model.
drfuzzy89
There are a lot of similar anecdotes in this thread, but I'm still skeptical. I've had similar issues with my Brother printer randomly not accepting a new toner cartridge and telling me that it's empty. It happened twice. In one case, I had to use some obscure button combination to force it to reset and then everything was fine. In another case, I needed to remove and reseat the cart a dozen times before it suddenly worked.
Anyway, it's definitely possible that these newer issues are Brother doing something nefarious, but I could also see a lot of these issues being with finicky sensors.
drpixie
I used to buy Brother for exactly this reason,but recently had an older (but upgraded) Brother not recognise 3rd-party toner :(
So ... not HP, not Brother ... anyone left that sells reasonable printers with honest firmware?
opan
At this point, like with many things, you'll have to go model by model and not trust a whole company to do something right. I have several of the Netgear R6220 router running OpenWrt, but Netgear as a whole tends to not have OpenWrt support, so I would never blindly recommend someone buy Netgear. Instead I'd say to look at the Table of Hardware on OpenWrt's site. That being said, a list of "good" printers somewhere would be fantastic. I have an old HP monochrome laser printer (sorry to be part of the problem, don't have the model handy, may edit it in later) I got at a thrift store, it happily accepted some very cheap toner I got from eBay. I understand everyone has hated HP printers for years, though I think it's mostly the inkjet models.
gessha
In a recent Louis Rossmann video that covered this Brother printer issue, there were some suggestions in the comments, Minolta if I remember correctly.
wewxjfq
The problem with printer recommendations is that many vocal supporters are running older models that work like charm, so when a good company becomes enshittified, there will be some timelag until consensus shifts. I mean I could still praise Samsung printers despite Samsung having left the printer business years ago.
varispeed
I bought Brother printer HL-3220CW and it doesn't work with 3rd party toners. It didn't even have new firmware.
I also have HL-3230CDW that I bought few years ago and aftermarket toner works fine.
Seems like they must have done it to the newer printers.
The new printer is completely uneconomical. I had to pay around £150 for Brother set of toners, whereas aftermarket for my older printer is just £35. The quality is the same.
javawizard
I gotta say, switching to an Epson EcoTank printer was one of the best decisions I've ever made.
It has ink reservoirs rather than cartridges, and small, permanently plumbed tubes that go from the reservoirs to the print head.
Not only does that mean there's no way it can tell what kind of ink I'm putting in it, it also means the tanks are fucking massive. It's so nice being able to go O(years) without refilling.
It cost about twice what a comparable, cartridge-based printer cost at the time. To this day I still consider it one of the best purchases I've ever made.
john01dav
With traditional cartridges the ink can dry out and clog the cartridge if you don't print regularly. My print work loads are very bursty, like I had to print 100 resumes to go to a career fair one time but this was after like 6 months of nothing. For this reason, I prefer laser printers. Furthermore, with permanently plumbed pipes, it sounds like it could ruin the whole printer instead of just a cartridge.
zamalek
I had a really shitty customer support interaction for a $60 Brother scanner: they included the wrong calibration sheet, and proceeded to attempt gas lighting me about user error despite photos showing it didn't fit in the scanner under any orientation. Replacements were $20 shipped, but out of stock anyway. Needless to say, that changed my mind about which manufacturer to make an expensive purchase from.
It was Wikipedia that reminded me Xerox even existed. All my other research led to the usual shitlist: HP, Canon, Brother, etc. No problems on Linux and Mac (printing and scanning), which is seems par these days, but no problems on Windows either: the manufacturer app was completely optional (but was straight to the point, functional, and worth the install).
Xerox color lasers have my glowing recommendation.
noname120
When did you buy it? After a cursory search it seems that Xerox engages in the same scammy behavior with 3rd-party consumables: artificially degrading the quality (lower DPI, fake printhead jerks), region-locking, wasting ink so it drains faster, and DRMs that blank out refuse anything that didn't pad their bottom line.
skyyler
I love my Xerox! It's a VersaLink that I took from an office of a defunct company.
Came with replacement toner cartridges but I'm still on the set that was installed when I got it!!
Prints are crisp, fast, and it doesn't use very much power when idle. Love it!
userbinator
If you're in a humid climate, toner will clump while ink won't dry. I've noticed that in SE Asia, inkjets are more popular, likely for this reason.
sejje
The inside of a home is rarely a humid climate.
I quit buying inkjets 20 years ago in southwest Florida.
javawizard
It's a good point.
My workloads are similarly bursty. I've had no problems so far; the worst I've had to deal with is splotchy printing after it's been sitting for O(months), and a quick print head clean fixes that right up.
Laser printers are great if you're doing all or mostly documents though, I can't argue with that. About half of my printing is stickers and high quality photo prints, both of which benefit from inkjet printing.
(My specific model of printer is an Epson EcoTank ET-8550)
sitkack
Sounds pretty hit or miss, the 1 star reviews don't inspire confidence.
https://epson.com/For-Work/Printers/Inkjet/EcoTank-Photo-ET-...
sebazzz
Clogged cartridges aren't the major issue. Clogged print heads means your printer is ruined and you can dispose of it. Except for HP printers where the print head is in the cartridge itself.
numpad0
I've had great successes undoing clogged head on Epson printers with just few drops of isopropyl alcohol on ink drawing port. Weirdly the clogs don't even reproduce thereafter, so it might be silently doing something horrible, but worked for me.
javawizard
Where did you hear that? You can buy replacement print heads for all cartridge-less printers I've ever worked with, including my ET-8550.
The difference is that they're purchased separately from the ink, so as long as the original one works you can continue to use it no matter how much ink you go through.
starspangled
My print workload is very bursty but also low volume at the best of times. When my printer died I decided not to replace it because document printing services cost on the order of 10 cents per page (non-bulk) for basic printing.
I'd have to print hundreds of pages to even match the cost of a very cheap printer. I may never reach that threshold ever.
Best of all I don't have to worry about storing a crappy printer somewhere or have it dry out or clog up or spend time and effort on it and blocking it from accessing the internet and probably end up throwing it out and having to get a new one when I pull it out once every 4 years.
j45
Fair point, laser is great. Color laser is preferable, but not always comparable to what some inkjets can do.
Also possible to schedule/automate a test print every so often with the low cost of printing on the large tank printers to keep the print heads happy.
alsoforgotmypwd
5 year or more year old used HP enterprise workgroup printer only or mopier with low page count are ideal for personal use. In general, the more expensive the initial purchase price of laser printers, the more repairable and durable and lower cost per page they are. (I worked in a large university department in the 00's where they had zillions of network enterprise HP printers of all sizes.)
I have an HP LaserJet Pro M402dw because I don't have a particular need for color.
gradschool
Something to keep in mind when selecting a printer with refillable liquid ink tanks is that they all have an internal waste ink repository, which is a sponge that soaks up unused ink that apparently accrues slowly through normal use, or quicker any time you do an ink purge [1]. On very high end photo printers it's replaceable, and might be described as a maintenance cartridge in the specs. If it fills up and can't be replaced, the printer is dead. When I was shopping around, the only brand I could find that had replaceable waste ink repositories even at the low end was Canon, and being too cheap even to have a network interface also saved me the trouble of firewalling it.
It's true that ink tank printers need to be used regularly or else the print heads dry out like a felt tip pen. Since the ink costs next to nothing per page, I print a full page family photo once a week and hang it up somewhere around the house if I haven't used the printer for anything else, which still works out cheaper than any alternatives. The walls look like instagram, but being reminded of loved ones might not be such a bad thing.
username190
EcoTank printers are particularly hostile with this. Despite that the waste ink pass on most models are user-servicable behind 1-2 screws, and can be purchased on Amazon for $10, the printer displays a message that you must ship the printer to Epson for a full replacement.
In order to bypass the warning, you’ve traditionally needed to use a program like WIC[0], which costs $10 per use(!) - I recommend epson_print_conf[1], which is a little more tailored to the HN crowd, but does not extract a bribe every time you use it.
userbinator
It cost about twice what a comparable, cartridge-based printer cost at the time.
CIS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_ink_system ) were around for a long time, and a popular mod amongst high-volume printers, especially Epsons, after the cartridge chip DRM was defeated[1]. They definitely cost less than the printer. I suppose Epson eventually found it profitable to do it themselves and sell with a warranty, that third-party CIS often didn't have.
dataflow
Do you have a recommendation for a particular color model? Preferably with a scanner (but it's fine if not)?
javawizard
Yes - mine is an Epson EcoTank 8550. It has a flatbed scanner and can print up to 13x19.
They also make one that can only print 8.5x11 but that has a document feeder on the scanner. It's otherwise the same printer.
I'd recommend either one, depending on how useful a document feeder would be for you and whether you need the larger print size of the one I have.
dataflow
Ah thank you!
null
rickyc091
Are you using wifi? I have the 4850 and the wifi would sporadically drop out after a few hours and I wouldn't be able to reconnect without a full factory reset. It was the most frustrating thing. I was about to return it then moved it to another location and connected it via ethernet. It's been fine since, but a $350 printer that doesn't have a reliable wifi module is terrible. After searching on reddit, it seems it's a common issue.
thanatos519
My EcoTank didn't notice the day glo and invisible fluorescent inks I put through it. Amazing device.
pjdesno
I’ve been pretty happy with my EcoTank, but my favorite is still the HP PageWide I have at work. (I typically have to print ~100 5-10 page exams twice a semester) I’m very sad they discontinued them.
mcpherrinm
Is there any mechanism to ensure you use "genuine" ink, or can you just dump whatever in?
jdiff
> Not only does that mean there's no way it can tell what kind of ink I'm putting in it
javawizard
Nope! As long as you've got a bottle or a syringe with an opening small enough to fit in the refilling ports, you're golden.
jonplackett
Of all the things the EU have taken a hard line on why can’t printers not being total assholes be one of them?
This is way more annoying than cookies.
saalweachter
Are there major printer manufacturers in Europe?
stuff4ben
Does that matter? I would think it's whoever wants to sell to European consumers that matters.
mystified5016
Irrelevant. The law would mandate requirements for printers sold in the territory. If it's non-compliant, it can't legally be sold.
Doesn't matter if HP is an American company, their products would be illegal to sell in the EU. They have to produce a compliant product or just not sell anything.
51Cards
We have a large inventory of Brother printers we use onsite at events. We use Samsung for 12+ years until they pulled out of the printer business. We chose Brother mainly because they weren't HP with their toner practices. Now looks like it may not make much of a difference.
alsoforgotmypwd
There are zillions of cheap, chipped third-party HP toner cartridges for Pro and enterprise printers.
globular-toast
My Samsung ML-1910 is 15+ years old and still going. USB only so it's plugged in to a box running CUPS. I used to use a Raspberry Pi for it. I don't print an awful lot, only on my second ever toner cartridge, the initial "starter" one lasted ages. Hope it lasts forever. I didn't realise Samsung pulled out.
john01dav
So which printers are good to get now? I have a brother printer that I got for $30 off Facebook marketplace, which I'll keep for now, but it'd be good to know which brands are safe should I need to get another one or make a recommendation to less technical people in my circle.
I'd prefer laser printers since they handle bursty workloads better (for example I had to print 100 resumes for a career fair after 6 months of nothing), since the ink can't dry out.
epoxy_sauce
I got an old dell mfp 3115 from a business that was moving for about a hundred bucks. I've never replaced the toner since I got it almost a decade ago and still have a compatible replacements. I've printed hundreds and hundreds of pages. I'll probably use it for the rest of my life or until I can't get the drivers to work. If you have the space something like that is an option.
omoikane
If it's really few months of not printing anything, would it be more economical to use one of those print services instead? You lose the convenience, but you also gain a bit of shelf space for not storing the printer and all related printing supplies.
bluGill
My time in not going to those places to pick up a job is worth more than the cost of a printer. I use those places for large prints - so far once in my life - but it takes valuable time.
dakiol
But what about privacy? Don’t you mind printing a copy of your passport or payslip or any sensitive doc via a print service (e.g., in a kiosk)
nosioptar
The library's even cheaper. My library offers something like 400 b+w pages or 200 color pages per month for free.
bluGill
After thinking about this for a bit - I bet the third party ink refill manufactures would win in court if they sued for the codes needed. There are many laws in place already - most of them were written with cars in mind, but they are broad enough to apply to printers.
However it would be several million in legal fees to do this and I'm not sure if they make enough on refill to pay the lawyers. Unless they can convince the courts to give them legal fees as well.
Prickle
I can confirm this from my own, anecdotal experience. My current brother printer no longer recognizes refilled ink cartridges and some third party cartridges.
duxup
Bummer if true, my brother printer is the one I hate the least.
B1FF_PSUVM
The day is coming no one will print anything because it's so painful. Who knew that "save the trees" would come from printer manufacturers.
(I know pulp trees are farmed, but I too have a Brother printer ...)
chii
farmed trees could theoretically cause more harm than good, if the plantation was from bulldozing a native area which had biodiversity.
It really is circumstance based, rather than always good.
bobthepanda
In Japan an overabundance of farmed trees is actually thought to be responsible for larger, worse allergy seasons: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/06/japan-declares...
b3ing
I guess it’s time for people to come up with open source printers
Brian_K_White
The entire gnu software movement was started decades ago already because one guy was fed up with printer firmwares and thought they should be replaced with public diy open source firmware to make the printers actually serve their owners.
"it's time" was already forever ago and some serious committed practically religious power devs tried and gave up on it, even while toppling practically all other software ecosystems.
Hell even the current locked down user-hostile printers are actually running linux and gnu software. That must be exceedingly galling.
tomkarho
Maybe an entire organization will spring from that to combat proprietary software :)
atq2119
In case anybody doesn't get the reference, printer driver trouble is what initially motivated Stallman to come up with the idea of free software and ultimately the GPL and the FSF.
DaSHacka
I can't believe the entire FOSS ecosystem essentially stemmed from printer issues, and we _still_ don't have a mainstream FOSS printer firmware that removes DRM and tracking dots (and whatever else they do nowadays) akin to OpenWRT, but for printers.
We have fully open source hardware AND software _3D_ printers capable of printing working guns, but we can't improve the process of squirting ink on paper so it's not universally abhorred?
ivanmontillam
Maybe it's time for Framework to start doing printers too.
Brian_K_White
Firmware is the thing that Framework has failed the most at from day one to today. It's every bit as locked down as everyone else's only without the big guys quality control and updates so you get to live with bugs for the entire life of the hardware.
Their firmware updates are complete clown car. When they actually do one, the update process itself is just stupid fragile. Cross your fingers and clear your schedule for the next day in case you aren't lucky. You have a 10% chance of being left with a machine that probably still runs but works worse than before, and no ability to roll back.
I have a 11th gen intel board that is completely unusable after an update, but might possibly still be recoverable if I reinstall it into the laptop so it can use the laptop display instead of displayport. But I'd have to take my current 12th gen board out and then put it all back again after.
A Framework printer, if it matched a Framework laptop, would still have shit firmware, probably licensed from one of the majors, with all the same bad behavior, except with more bugs.
MostlyStable
This topic has come up several times and there are apparently a host of issues. Patents in paper handling etc. A replacement, open source control board send potentially more doable.
b800h
We had laser printers in 2005. Anything before that is out of patent.
ishtanbul
You could probably 3d print most of the parts quite easily except the print head
RobotToaster
Paper handling is hard, that's why sprocket feed paper used to be popular.
DaiPlusPlus
Hypothetically... can't you just print a 2D document directly on a 3D printer?
chongli
3D printers don't have anywhere near the resolution of 2D printers. Take something like a $300 Epson photo printer [1]. It has 5760 x 1440 dpi with 6 colours!
[1] https://epson.ca/For-Home/Printers/Photo/Expression-Photo-XP...
Mashimo
Yeah, people have put pens on the printhead to make them into a plotter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10zg0aL0Y5M
aqueueaqueue
Yes but it is expensive and slow, rarely big enough for A4 (or Letter) and would be plastic. Additionally it would be maybe up to 4 colours. Not as in CYMK but as in 4 colours total no mixing.
Unless you do a lithographic print but they need a light source to be seen.
Also you can print pixels. You convert to G code so it is made up of lines.
_carbyau_
It's kind of amazing that capitalism can go so far as to make customers want to opt out and build their fucking own...
xxs
You'd need to be able to 3d print POM, though (or use CNC).
codethief
And then you 3D-print the open-source schematics? ;)
conductr
Before that, can the firmware be cracked / jail broken some how?
awruko
I have color laser mfc-9340cdw. It has outdated firmware version za1.10. There is newer firmware version zb1.10q dated 9.7.23. It looks like there is no automatic update. Just to be sure, I have created a static dhcp entry for it on a router with misconfigured default gateway.
Brajeshwar
Is this where we insert the ever popular meme, “You Were The Chosen One!”
I'm a brother shill but a while back they experimented with a consumer-hostile firmware update for one of their models.
Since then, I've been edge blocking the rdns of update.brother.co.jp. It usually resolves to 4 IPv4 addys. Depending on the DNS resolver, they should lie in one of these subnets.
edit: It looks like Brother is using cloudfront to provide CDN services. Every region I try I get a diff subnet. Better to query yourself than rely on my IPs.