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
Losing*
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 :\
Any brands left? 🤔😅
FedEx if you only need to print once in a blue moon…
Or the library or office supply store.
And once again the only available good tech is old 2nd hand.
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.
My brother did what!?!?
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.
Oh, 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.
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.
… 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.
Depends on whether you absolutely need your printers connected to the internet or not.
Printer manufacturers: Of course your printers need to be connected to the Internet… For… Reasons…
The fun part is the security exploits often come from things like DRM ink cartridges that allows an attack to come from the goddamn cartridge!
Wouldn’t be a problem if you didn’t include a serial connection to the cartridge in the first place!
Oh hey I can think of a solution to improve security here!
Any networked device can be used to gain access to the rest of the network (kind of).
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.
Time to DIY.
I use a regular Linux system and set stuff up manually, but there are options that do more out of the box if you don’t know how (and don’t want to learn) to DIY the software.
I’m working on that. I have little previous experience with Linux and self hosting but I’m slowly making progress. I now have switched my gaming PC over to Linux almost full time. I know I can switch to Jellyfin for video streaming but it’s been a lower priority to figure out compared with other services I’m trying to understand how to self host.
Rock on, you’re killing it! Please don’t hesitate to ask questions either here or a place like [email protected].
Id recommend Proxmox on a cheap n100 nuc.
Makes it easy to spin up VMs, take snapshots of them, tinker and break them, then roll back to the snapshot
That sucks.
Tell me you are using synology without telling me you are using synology
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 [email protected]
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.
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.
Every CVE I flip a coin.
Makes life more exciting.
But not so much for the printers…
Printer botnet goes brr.
Printers always go brr.
Unless they’re HP, then they only go brr if you buy their ink. And apparently Brother now too.
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.
You’ll never have an issue until you do. Not to mention all the issues you don’t know about.
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.
Haha, my crappy ass old HP printer still takes refills. No printer company shall ever see another cent of mine 😈
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.
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).
Yeah interesting find, and i agree plus you can always sic the ACCC onto them if they start being painful
It’s like every company that wasn’t complete shit just suddenly decided to…go to complete shit.
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.
Game is such a fucking gem. I gotta do a replay soon.
They are just taking the mask off since they don’t have to wear it right now.
Cuts into profit margins pretending to not be a threat to the continued existence of the species and ecosystem as a whole. Gotta buy that 15th mega-yacht.
Something something, I’ll bring the BBQ sauce.
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”
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.
They have a fiduciary duty to be as shitty as humanly possible.
They don’t – that’s a cargo-cult misunderstanding of Dodge v. Ford Motor Co – but it’s so widely believed I guess it might as well be true.
Well, there is plenty of evidence to the contrary, such as the way Costco mostly operates. Being the good guys has a lot of brand value. With a little nurturing of the vast propaganda machine known as advertising, that could be improved.
If the people sitting on the Supreme Court believe it, and I believe the majority of those shitbags do, then that is unfortunately the law as it stands.
But when the law is unethical, I don’t see why we should be lawful.
Dude, Brother is not even an US company - like most big printer companies it’s Japanese and traded at the Tokyo stock exchange.
So… You’re arguments are invalid and only show your americentric world view.
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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.
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