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Unless I'm misunderstanding, this isn't bricking the device. The driver is refusing to allow it to work, sure, but it doesn't damage the chip itself in any way.

Unless I'm misunderstanding, this isn't bricking the device. The driver is refusing to allow it to work, sure, but it doesn't damage the chip itself in any way. The reason the FTDI incident back in 2014 blew up was because the FTDI driver didn't just refuse to work - it reprogrammed the USB PID on counterfeit/cloned chips to 0, which actually prevented them from working on any host (looking back at articles from that time, it looks like you could fix it by downloading the FT32 config tool from FTDI, but the important point is that the driver was effectively damaging the chips). I really don't see the issue with drivers developed by a hardware company to support their hardware refusing to work with other hardware. I recognize that it creates problems for innocent end users when they do it, but Prolific just doesn't have any obligations to the end-users of other manufacturers' chips. Refusing to operate (rather than reprogramming the chips like FTDI's solution did) seems like a completely reasonable path to me.

deleted 4y ago
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josephcsible 4y ago
> Prolific just doesn't have any obligations to the end-users of other manufacturers' chips To me, this would excuse a change that was actually somehow beneficial for their own chips and just happened to break clones, but it doesn't excuse a change that does nothing for their own chips and breaks clones on purpose.
- manicdee 4y ago
  It is beneficial for their chips: the driver will work exactly as advertised and tested. The drivers do not break clones on purpose, the drivers simply don’t enable clones to work. Write your own driver if you want to use the clones. It is not Prolific’s job to support hardware they didn’t design, build and test. Even more importantly it is not Prolific’s job to support competitors who are not going to respect Prolific’s IP.
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    But the driver doesn't work any differently for their own chips than the old one did. And this change was definitely, unambiguously, breaking clones on purpose.
    - munch117 4y ago
      How could you possibly know that? For all we know, the new driver could have been a rewrite from scratch (say to support new products that run at higher speeds than the older driver could support), and the new driver never worked with this particular clone to begin with. Keep in mind that the driver developer may not even be in possession of a clone of this type. Clones see new versions over time just like any other product, the only thing is that since they don't advertise their true version, it's impossible to practically support them.
      - josephcsible 4y ago
        The new driver detects clones, puts "THIS IS NOT PROLIFIC PL2303. PLEASE CONTACT YOUR SUPPLIER." in Device Manager, and refuses to work. What sequence of events do you see that would have led to that string existing, let alone all of that happening, unintentionally?
        munch117 4y ago
        The string is intentional. But that doesn't mean the author had a practical way of making the driver work with any and all clones.
        josephcsible 4y ago
        What I'm saying is that just "don't write code to try to detect clones, and treat every chip the same as you're currently treating official ones" would have been sufficient to make it work, and they intentionally did extra work and wrote extra code to make it not work on clones.
xupybd 4y ago
The problem is that you have no way of knowing that you are buying a fake device. If you run the risk of buying a fake and having it not work then why buy that brand? Buy one that will just work and no risk of bricked fakes. Prolific are harming their brand by doing this. I will now be on alert to avoid their products. Not because I take moral issue with them not allowing me to use fakes, but because I risk getting a non-functional device.
- kalleboo 4y ago
  > The problem is that you have no way of knowing that you are buying a fake device Well there wasn't before, but now when the driver alerts you to this fact people can leave 1-star reviews on these devices
  - pjerem 4y ago
    At least on Amazon, reviews from all sellers are merged together.
    - kalleboo 4y ago
      The goods are also commingled so hopefully that will teach people to not buy stuff on Amazon since they're likely to get fakes. So win-win.
- manicdee 4y ago
  Yet if Prolific support the fakes, they end up wasting time and money trying to provide tech support to people experiencing issues with fakes, or having hostile customers trying to get refunds on fakes from Prolific. The better option is to find ways to ensure you are buying legitimate items, such as avoiding Amazon, eBay, AliBaba, etc.
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    There's a difference between not supporting something and going out of your way to make sure it doesn't work.
xeyownt 4y ago
Whatever it is, it is certainly bad publicity. As genuine equipment manufacturer, it is better to make sure that equipment that used to work before an update, still does after update is carried on. Reject should only occur when the driver is installed for the first time.
moolcool 4y ago
> The driver is refusing to allow it to work, sure, but it doesn't damage the chip itself in any way That's kind of immaterial, isn't it? Like most end users won't know how to roll back a driver in the device manager, and without that knowledge their device is as useful to them as one which was actually bricked.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

josephcsible 4y ago

> Prolific just doesn't have any obligations to the end-users of other manufacturers' chips To me, this would excuse a change that was actually somehow beneficial for their own chips and just happened to break clones, but it doesn't excuse a change that does nothing for their own chips and breaks clones on purpose.

manicdee 4y ago
It is beneficial for their chips: the driver will work exactly as advertised and tested. The drivers do not break clones on purpose, the drivers simply don’t enable clones to work. Write your own driver if you want to use the clones. It is not Prolific’s job to support hardware they didn’t design, build and test. Even more importantly it is not Prolific’s job to support competitors who are not going to respect Prolific’s IP.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  But the driver doesn't work any differently for their own chips than the old one did. And this change was definitely, unambiguously, breaking clones on purpose.
  - munch117 4y ago
    How could you possibly know that? For all we know, the new driver could have been a rewrite from scratch (say to support new products that run at higher speeds than the older driver could support), and the new driver never worked with this particular clone to begin with. Keep in mind that the driver developer may not even be in possession of a clone of this type. Clones see new versions over time just like any other product, the only thing is that since they don't advertise their true version, it's impossible to practically support them.
    - josephcsible 4y ago
      The new driver detects clones, puts "THIS IS NOT PROLIFIC PL2303. PLEASE CONTACT YOUR SUPPLIER." in Device Manager, and refuses to work. What sequence of events do you see that would have led to that string existing, let alone all of that happening, unintentionally?
      - munch117 4y ago
        The string is intentional. But that doesn't mean the author had a practical way of making the driver work with any and all clones.
        josephcsible 4y ago
        What I'm saying is that just "don't write code to try to detect clones, and treat every chip the same as you're currently treating official ones" would have been sufficient to make it work, and they intentionally did extra work and wrote extra code to make it not work on clones.

xupybd 4y ago

The problem is that you have no way of knowing that you are buying a fake device. If you run the risk of buying a fake and having it not work then why buy that brand? Buy one that will just work and no risk of bricked fakes. Prolific are harming their brand by doing this. I will now be on alert to avoid their products. Not because I take moral issue with them not allowing me to use fakes, but because I risk getting a non-functional device.

kalleboo 4y ago
> The problem is that you have no way of knowing that you are buying a fake device Well there wasn't before, but now when the driver alerts you to this fact people can leave 1-star reviews on these devices
- pjerem 4y ago
  At least on Amazon, reviews from all sellers are merged together.
  - kalleboo 4y ago
    The goods are also commingled so hopefully that will teach people to not buy stuff on Amazon since they're likely to get fakes. So win-win.
manicdee 4y ago
Yet if Prolific support the fakes, they end up wasting time and money trying to provide tech support to people experiencing issues with fakes, or having hostile customers trying to get refunds on fakes from Prolific. The better option is to find ways to ensure you are buying legitimate items, such as avoiding Amazon, eBay, AliBaba, etc.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  There's a difference between not supporting something and going out of your way to make sure it doesn't work.

xeyownt 4y ago

Whatever it is, it is certainly bad publicity. As genuine equipment manufacturer, it is better to make sure that equipment that used to work before an update, still does after update is carried on. Reject should only occur when the driver is installed for the first time.

moolcool 4y ago

> The driver is refusing to allow it to work, sure, but it doesn't damage the chip itself in any way That's kind of immaterial, isn't it? Like most end users won't know how to roll back a driver in the device manager, and without that knowledge their device is as useful to them as one which was actually bricked.