Brother accused of locking down third-party printer ink cartridges via forced firmware updates, removing older firmware versions from support portals
Brother accused of locking down third-party printer ink cartridges via forced firmware updates, removing older firmware versions from support portals
Brother accused of locking down third-party printer ink cartridges via forced firmware updates, removing older firmware versions from support portals
In case anyone was thinking this applies only to inkjet printers: no, it ONLY seems to apply to laser printers -- the thing that Brother used to be known for. Where the article says "ink", they mean "toner". There is no ink in a laser printer.
It's like every company that wasn't complete shit just suddenly decided to...go to complete shit.
If regulators don’t stop them from doing it, the CEO’s of publicly traded companies will get the boot from the board for not doing it. They have a fiduciary duty to be as shitty as humanly possible.
We need laws to stop this, but the politicians are all bribed not to.
Unrestrained Capitalism. Without those pesky regulations, companies can charge us all unlimited amounts and not have to consider our rights or health/safety.
It's like every company that was
n't completeplaying the social good will game and didn't appear at a casual glance to be shit just suddenly decided to...goto complete shit.masks off, because they saw it might finally be acceptable to be ghouls again.
Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure I FTFY. Wish it weren't so, but that's definitely what it looks like....
The mask of humanity fall[s] from capital. It has to take it off to kill everyone -- everything you love; all the hope and tenderness in the world. It has to take it off, just for one second. To do the deed.
- The Deserter, Disco Elysium
They are just taking the mask off since they don't have to wear it right now.
With the current US government, there's far more roadblocks to running a company ethically than turning it to absolute shit
Brother is a Japanese company.
The government has mostly turned a blind eye to dark pattern business for years, and now the president is openly saying that he encourages it and wants companies to step up their game. Of course things are going to get worse, especially now where everyone will have forgotten this by the next election, so it'll get to stay as "the norm"
You were the chosen one! 😭
They had two things going for them... Decent linux support and non-shitty DRM ink/toner
I have a Ricoh that doesn't give me any problems, works out of the box with Linux pcl6 drivers. Bought a third party toner cartridge like 8 years ago, still using it today. It's an old model, but worth checking newer ones.
I Remeber something about that being buyitforlife on reddit, would you consider posting it to !buyitforlife@slrpnk.net
I suggest whoever has old firmware files to upload them to the Internet Archive (if they allow those).
Internet Archive is extremely lax in what it allows
Got this link from reddacted
Brother used to be the good guys... Damn.
Right? I used to recommend friends and family invest in a brother laser printer instead of inkjet, especially if they didn’t need color
Et tu Brother?
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.
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.
Urgent security fixes are gonna go unpatched
I don't understand why a printer would ever need an "urgent security fix". Or a software update for that matter.
And once again the only available good tech is old 2nd hand.
Yep. Just getting ready to replace the color laser printer I bought almost 10 years ago. I had been considering a new Brother before this but looks like I’m going the 2nd hand route again (last one was an open box HP from microcenter for $200 lol)
I got a tiny HP laser from an old job. Must be 15+ years old, runs perfectly and toner is $20 for god knows how many pages.
Looks like nobody can or is willing to do decent printers anymore. I'll run my Laserjet 1100 till it dies, then I'm done with printing.
If Brother starts playing that game, they will lose. Why bother buying their considerably more expensive printers over those of HP if they are going to be just as bad in the third party ink department?
Brother losing all competitive advantage they had via reputation. Doing a very big 180 and reversing the changes and commiting to no do t his BS is the only way to undo this
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 :\
Losing*
Nice, Brother was the last one standing in my mind.
I'm glad I have an IoT vlan without internet access. Nothing is allowed to phone home here.
10 years later
Printers now include embedded cellular modems as backup for OTA firmware updates, ink subscriptions and telemetry.
Printer Faraday cage.
Dude!
Thats's a shame, I always considered brother one of the better makers of paper manglers.
"You were supposed to be the one"
"IT WAS SAID YOU WOULD DESTROY THE COMPETITION, NOT JOIN THEM"
Proton, Mozilla, Brother
Its not gonna stop there
😓
Every single company.
All it takes is your favorite company to suddenly be run by a CEO who wants to maximize profits or increase shareholder value, or worse, think they're God's Gift to the World. Or in the flip side, they're fighting for survival so they have to make scummy decisions to keep afloat.
Pro tip: don't have favorite companies, have favorite products. And don't assume the next gen of your favorite product will be good.
The issues with each are very different:
Et tu, frater?
i came across this explanation of it, haven't verified it directly but he seems to make good content:
https://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
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.
Unironically, this is why RMS was radicalized.
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...
Closest I've seen was rooting a printer via a security exploit
nononononononpnNONONONONONO WHYYYYY I JUST GOT A BROTHER BECAUSE OF HP DOING THE SAME THING WTF
Keep it off the Internet and don't update the firmware
anyone know about jailbreaking printers
It absolutely baffles me that there isn't a huge custom printer firmware movement.
Ask Richard Stallman ;)
🪴
Et tu Brute! :(
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)
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."
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.
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).
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....
The only way to not have this happen is to get open source hardware. The open source eco system is amazing already but we need more focus on that, hardware. CPU's, Computers, printers, phones, everything
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.
I really hope Brother is telling the truth!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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?
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!
I think its time we deprecate most forms of printing. Clearly corporations cannot be trusted to operate these kinds of companies.
This is a total shit move but I have tried many printers and I'm still choosing Brother everytime. Especially on some older generations with copy scan and print. None of the other big brands are worth a shit. They all fail or jam in some form or fashion.
Give them time and they’ll suck too. Nothing is safe from enshitification, as they’ve just shown us.
Oh I believe it but no doubt. But right now even with this totally shitty move and I mean totally shitty move. Brother atleast their older models still accept 3rd party cartridges. Everyone buy those! Fuck the new stuff.
Brother deny the claims: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/brother-denies-using-firmware-updates-to-brick-printers-with-third-party-ink/
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.
If it's not already under the umbrella of right to repair, do we now need right to refill?
This shit happened to me recently. Installed firmware update and immediately my 3rd party toner stops working. Try to find old firmware to roll back to and couldn't locate it anywhere. Found some for other models via Google drive links in Reddit posts, but nothing for my printer.
I replaced the toner with new 3rd party toner which worked. And now I'll never install another firmware update on the printer and should probably block it from the internet.
Even with a backup, there are chance they put a "security feature" to prevent downgrade.
Any brands left? 🤔😅
FedEx if you only need to print once in a blue moon...
Or the library or office supply store.
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, no subscription based models. we orignally had scam-epson.
The printers in the article are using toner. The title is misleading.
We seriously need a FOSS+FOSH printer
I have even thought of some names:
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!
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.
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.
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)
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.
Or a modular printer
They were the last good guys :(
I guess it's time to buy the printer I've been postponing
try looking for laser jet printers, only use toner cartridge. Ink-based printers are pretty much scams. we spent an untold amount on ink for epson, until the printer failed completely
Sadly i need an ink printer. I already hace a laser one but sometimes i need to printer on papers that don't work on laser
if the update doesn’t allow the printer to calibrate with this aftermarket ink the cheaper carts become basically unusable
This isn't true. It just means you have to do the registration manually.
This is scummy behavior for sure, but it's also being exaggerated for clicks. You can read the sources linked in the wiki to see exactly what users are reporting.
Nooo, you were the only remaining printer company that wasn't a customer-hating dumpster fire of a company!
Oh, Brother.
It's going to get to the point where you might be better off going back to dot matrix if tank-based inkjet printers are somehow locked down via chemical DRM too.
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
Anyone know which ip addresses to block to stop the updates?
Drag thought Brother were supposed to be the makers of user friendly printers. Are they enshittifying?
At least they aren’t transphobic.
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.
Keeping up-to-date with security updates is incredibly important.
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.
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
I fear the day my 2014 hp LaserJet dies. There won't be a decent printer on the market....
I'm only letting my latest Brother printer connect to my computer through the USB cable. No Internet connection at all.
RPi as a printer server, with the printer connected to its USB port. Use FreeBSD on RPi just to make sure...
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.
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.
They deny it was the firmware update. But not that something else has happened
I’ve had issues with colour but not B&W
Haha, my crappy ass old HP printer still takes refills. No printer company shall ever see another cent of mine 😈
So… when there is some controversy over an article in Lemmy it gets the strike though? How did this evolve?
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.
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.
That said, the allegation that old firmware isn't accessible is easy to verify and very troubling for Brother if true (what are they hiding?).
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.
Totally agree. Just the first time I have seen the notation.
You can edit the title, so if you want to strike through it, go ahead.
My brother did what!?!?
Buy an Epson EcoTank printer. My family owns three. You pay more for the printer but just dump in bottles of ink when they need refilling.
Just make sure you schedule a test print every couple off weeks to prevent clogs, is a little wasteful but if you get aftermarket ink it's cheap enough that is worth it, otherwise a new head will run you down around 50 bucks.
TIL EDIT: you can get continuous tank mods for most printers on AliExpress! I might give it a try with mine!
I just bought a printer. Everything I saw said that if you print infrequently then you don't want an inkjet. They're very prone to clogging if left alone for a while. Went with a laser printer instead.
I just got an old HP inkjet that doesn't care about reported ink levels and cheap ink bottles from AliExpress.
I print white on black because I have so much damn ink and nobody expects dark mode documents. Kinda funny when I take out a sheet of paper and have to dry it out. 120g/m² is absolutely the minimum when doing such crap though. Regular 80g/m² just wrinkles up and leaks through, although that's also a property of dye ink vs pigment ink.
But I also lucked out on sales combined with coupons
Currently it's €18.50, though for 0.5L (~1 pint) that's still cheap. Honestly I am surprised I actually received that.
Nice. We had one printer or another that required expensive ink cartridges before we got the Epson. I used to refill some cartridges but it was a pain. Now I just open a set of bottles and top up the tanks whenever it's thirsty.
I'm actually looking for a good multifunctional printer. Our Samsung is dying. It was an LED printer and we only changed toner 1 time in 15 years.
Anyone have recommendations on thermal printers?
Why thermal? Seems odd, but alright.
I recommend laser for just about everyone.
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.
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 to keep it running
Dot matrix is also an option, if they neither want to bother with toner, nor inkjet.
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?
I'm not going to recommend inkjets to anyone though. My recommendation anno 2025 is don't buy a printer if you can get by without one.
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.
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.
I think it's because thermal requires no ink.
Good that we did not buy a Brother printer.
they were the only option tho.
Is this happening to toner for their laser printers too?
OTOH, I've been using a HP laser printer for years and the last time I spent 40€ for toner was almost two years ago. Just stay away from shitty inksquirters or even shittier "multi-function-devices". They are customer-rippoff devices without real use, nothing else. Honestly, if you think you need to print colorful, fuzzy pictures that will fade at the first streak of sunlight you probably had it coming.
This firmware update applies to laserjets. Not inkjets.
Oh FFS. Not Brother as well. I used to recommend them to everyone. Who is left with unshittified printers?
Epson inkjets with refillable tanks probably.
Depending on the frequency of your printing, they can suck as well. Chronically clogged nozzles are maddening.
Did they ever make the excess ink parts user replaceable?
That they weren’t in some models kept me from getting one when I was in the market a few years ago.
That printer is a nightmare. But financially makes sense.
The printer has the same ink problems, clogged, runs out easy, can't print b&w when missing a color. But I can buy random ink.
I don't know if it matters, but I just bought a Canon laser printer. Didn't see anywhere about forced subscription options for toner.
we bought laser canon printer to, toner cartridge doesnt use color, so if you want color you would need an ink printer, its better to print a library or a printer shop anyways. we are using an MF class one?
I've got a Lexmark laser printer, and while there are cheaper subscription toners, you can pay the higher price for normal toner, and buy compatibles, for now at least.
you seem to have gotten a smart printer, new ones have that one, we got a canon laser.
I don’t at all feel vindicated, but my Brother printer is the worst printer I ever owned (this was 20 years ago admittedly). Absolute hunk of junk with nothing but problems. I’ve always wondered why they were so well recommended online.
Could have been a Friday afternoon one. The one I have is a workhorse that could print on bark using toner made of charcoal and dust.
use a laser printer? preferabally the ones that doesnt use updates or any newer versions.
Kyocera.
Also Japanese, and plenty of cheap generic toners available online. They even publish Linux drivers.
ill have to recommend buying old refurbished printers