Brother accused of locking down third-party printer ink cartridges via forced firmware updates, removing older firmware versions from support portals [see comments]

Foss printer when?

Oh FFS. Not Brother as well. I used to recommend them to everyone. Who is left with unshittified printers?

You were the chosen one! 😭

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?

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.

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

I really hope Brother is telling the truth!

"You were supposed to be the one"

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)

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.

It's like every company that wasn't complete shit just suddenly decided to...go to complete shit.

Et tu, frater?

Brother deny the claims: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/brother-denies-using-firmware-updates-to-brick-printers-with-third-party-ink/

Thats's a shame, I always considered brother one of the better makers of paper manglers.

Et tu Brother?

Brother used to be the good guys... Damn.

I suggest whoever has old firmware files to upload them to the Internet Archive (if they allow those).

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 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?

Proton, Mozilla, Brother

Its not gonna stop there

😓

And once again the only available good tech is old 2nd hand.

Any brands left? 🤔😅

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

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.

anyone know about jailbreaking printers

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.

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.

Et tu Brute! :(

So… when there is some controversy over an article in Lemmy it gets the strike though? How did this evolve?

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.

They deny it was the firmware update. But not that something else has happened

I’ve had issues with colour but not B&W

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.

If it's not already under the umbrella of right to repair, do we now need right to refill?

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.

I think its time we deprecate most forms of printing. Clearly corporations cannot be trusted to operate these kinds of companies.

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 too watched Louis Rossman’s YouTube video to author.

They were the last good guys :(

I guess it's time to buy the printer I've been postponing

I'm only letting my latest Brother printer connect to my computer through the USB cable. No Internet connection at all.

Nooo, you were the only remaining printer company that wasn't a customer-hating dumpster fire of a company!

Oh, Brother.

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

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.

My brother did what!?!?

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.

Anyone have recommendations on thermal printers?

I fear the day my 2014 hp LaserJet dies. There won't be a decent printer on the market....

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.

Haha, my crappy ass old HP printer still takes refills. No printer company shall ever see another cent of mine 😈

Is this happening to toner for their laser printers too?

Oh brother, this guy stinks!

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.

Good that we did not buy a Brother printer.

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.