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HP Inc settles printer toner lockout lawsuit with a promise to make firmware updates optional
(www.theregister.com)
this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2025
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I must buy a printer soon. Thank you for reminding me to avoid HP products.
brother laser printer
Are "brother" the nice guys at the moment?
relatively speaking
This is the way. My brother printer is a hl2040, came out sometime in the early 2000s. It still prints. I've replaced the toner cartridge once since my Dad gave it to me back in 2016.
The other day I needed to print something out and this was after I had reinstalled linux.
Just fired right up, instantly recognized. Its one of the best pieces of hardware I own.
Laser printer and probably brother, it's worth the extra up front cost 10 fold
For an old color Dell Laser printer I got from a thrift store years ago I can find 4 color sets of toner for it for $40-60
brother is currently enshittifying right now.
Brother. The end.
My current bother printer is a pile of shit.
Which printer and why? I just bought three L8690CDW Colour laser printers for me and my family after calling Brother who were happy to talk me thought my concerns, they informed me that this model does not have chipped cartridges so it’s ineligible for their cartridge subscription program and they also can’t tell if the cartridge is genuine or not. They don’t care if you use 3rd party toner.
No idea. Some model I bought off Amazon.
The printer headers are constantly moving out of alignment. Every time I print I need to realign the headers.
Probably has something to do with the printer starting up every few days and making a bunch of noise doing who knows what.
I hate this fucking printer and will never buy brother again.
Edit: according to my order history it’s the ink jet MFC-J4335DW.
I realize that lasers are better from a printing consistency standpoint but the issue I have with it isn’t the ink. It’s everything else. Shitty design. It breaks down because it was poorly designed.
If you want reliability brother ain’t it.
That noise is the heads being cleaned, which needs to happen on all inkjet printers. It may be that your one was simply broken. I bet if you call Brother and ask for some advice they will help you.
I would. But a little research shows this is a very common problem with this model.
Even if I get it replaced it will eventually happen again.
Poor design.
After all of these years these people still can’t get it right. Fool me once.
Edit: it’s clear to me now that its “self cleaning” feature is responsible for why the heads get forced out of position. Wtf.
Still in warranty or less than 3 years old? I saw the Reddit post on this issue, might still be worth asking, they may have developed a hardware of software fix, and if not they may allow you to switch model.
Spill the beans, so others can avoid it.