We seriously need a FOSS+FOSH printer
I have even thought of some names:
- Gutenberg
- Aldus
- Manutius
this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2025
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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.
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They were the last good guys :(
I guess it's time to buy the printer I've been postponing
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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.
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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?
If you set the wrong gateway in the static IP settings or a reserved DHCP lease, it won't be able to get out.
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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.
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Drag thought Brother were supposed to be the makers of user friendly printers. Are they enshittifying?
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