Shit. They’ve realized the err of making high quality products with long lasting, universal ink. Capitalism blows
Nooooooo I thought they were the ones NOT doing that. That was kind of their USP for me…
It was only a matter of time, there isn’t enough competition in the market to punish such actions.
Hmm. I wonder if the decline of printer use is a factor.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39089971
Consumer printers are a dying market, in case you havent noticed. Sales are trending down roughly 25% over the past decade. HP itself has seen its printer revenue drop from $29B in 2008 to $18B last year. Unit sales have seen a similar decline.
This is what desperation looks like. Nothing they can do will reverse the trend–its bigger than a single company. HP has its numbers to hit… but are completely powerless to make it grow. So they do things like this, trying to slow the decline for themselves personally… but push more consumers away, accelerating the trend and the decline of their business.
Only $18B, boo Fkn hoo, the line must go up is a cancerous blight…
Always disconnect any IoT devices you buy from the internet. Anything from cameras to switches to TVs to washing machines can and will be downgraded or killed at some point if you allow vendors to push updates without your consent.
Outdated firmware about to be a top torrent of the week lmao
It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them. Bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness.
So that’s why my printer nags me to update firmware.
Accused? It happened, what’s the accusation?
This is being widely reported, but I still haven’t been able to figure out exactly what printers and what firmwares this is applying to. I’ve got a brother laser printer, but it’s been unplugged for a few weeks now as I moved around my home office. I do usually use it on wi-fi for wireless network printing, but I haven’t tapped update on it for months. I would like to know what I should look for to identify if this is an issue for me.
Obviously I’ve got a few possible scenarios: 1 - my printer is updated past this firmware already: A. I can only buy brother toner B. I figure out to downgrade, which sounds tricky. C. I buy a new(old) printer? 2 - my printer isn’t updated: A. I turn off network functions on it entirely, printing using the USB port or with a USB cable. B. I block internet access on my network, but allow it to work locally. This is potentially risky if i do setup wrong or change my network config and forget about it. C. I say fuck it and only buy brother toner since it’s probably going to impact pricing either way
I’d put it behind a closed firewall with logging enabled. Your home router might be able to do this even. Then you can see if it’s trying to connect to the Internet beyond NTP without you clicking “update”.
I have a pi-hole. And my asus router can probably close all outbound traffic. I also think USB printing is fine tbh. I don’t need AirPrint.
Then you should do exactly that before it has the opportunity to download an “improved” firmware. Maybe create a DHCP reservation and matching firewall rule before connecting it to the home network. Good luck!
All corporations are out to exploit you any way possible. None of them are to be trusted to behave in an ethical manner.
Asking because I know nothing of programming, how hard would it be to write a new firmware for a printer?
Reasonably difficult, I think. I’m basing my answer off of the vibes I get from open source firmware projects for routers, which are far more common. I haven’t heard of similar for printers, which suggests that there is less of a foundation to work on. I think Brother, in particular, was a brand that has typically been decent up until now.
I also get the sense that programming firmware is different enough to programming software that a software developer trying to contribute would find it really difficult(?. Someone correct me if I’m wrong — I’m not a software developer, but a scientist who writes code, so I’m speaking outside of my main expertise). But this loops back in with the lack of existing projects making it harder to get to grips with how to do stuff — part of why I like open source programs is because I can look through a project and try to understand what the code is doing.
Glad I decided against brother printer recently. How Kyocera doesn’t follow, so far it seems fine?
