17 ms·

HP have updated their printers to ban ‘non-HP’ cartridges

418 points by imalerba 4y ago

nawgz 4y ago
I'm amazed that this hasn't been regulated. Aftermarket commodities being turned into walled gardens based not on physical incompatibility but software checks is obscene. Does the EU have defenses against this kind of behavior? I feel like monopolistic is the wrong word. Creating captive markets?
- pdonis 4y ago
  > I'm amazed that this hasn't been regulated. The best way to regulate it is for people to stop buying HP printers. I haven't bought one for about 20 years.
  - nhchris 4y ago
    Thanks to ongoing consolidation of large manufacturing firms, this kind of attitude quickly leads to having nothing to buy. The only solution is collective bargaining in the form of regulation.
  - atahanacar 4y ago
    Ideally, and by that I mean the average consumer is well-informed in every product they purchase, yes. But the average customer really doesn't know any better. You can't expect people to know an alternative exists when and unregulated market will always promote marketing over quality. >I haven't bought one for about 20 years. Just the fact that you are commenting on HN shows that you aren't the average consumer when it comes to electronics. People tend to overestimate the others' knowledge on topics they themselves are familiar with. A considerable chunk of printer "consumers" don't even know the difference between an inkjet and a laser printer. We can blame them all we want because they aren't "doing their research before spending money", but we don't even know what we are wasting our money on, especially with thing we aren't that knowledgeable about. Everyone values their time differently, so they may or may not research something before purchase depending on what they are buying. In short, no regulation means leaving sheep alone with wolves.
    - pdonis 4y ago
      > unregulated market There is no such thing as an unregulated market. The only meaningful difference is between a free market--a market that is regulated solely by the voluntary choices of market participants--and a non-free market--which is at least to some degree also regulated by rules dictated and enforced by entities who are not market participants (the most common such entities, of course, being governments). Both types of markets are regulated; they're just regulated by different mechanisms. > will always promote marketing over quality No, a market in which consumers are either unable to perceive quality, or are unwilling to take the time to do so (possibly for rational reasons such as the lack of time or the product being so cheap that it's not worth the effort) will always promote marketing over quality. But that doesn't mean this is a "problem" that either needs to be or can be fixed by outside regulation. It can't be fixed by outside regulation because outside regulation makes the problem worse, not better; it makes consumers think their interests are being protected, when in fact regulatory capture means all that is really happening is that the biggest players are getting further entrenched because the cost of regulatory compliance shuts out potential competitors. It doesn't need to be fixed because consumers have the choice of what to buy or not to buy, and if they either can't or won't (again, possibly for rational reasons) take the time to choose based on quality, either they don't buy at all or they choose based on something else, and take the consequences. That's what not taking the time to perceive quality means: you choose to be at the mercy of whatever marketing or other information you do use to determine what to buy (or whether to buy), however unreliable it is. > no regulation More precisely, absence of outside regulation from entities like governments that are not market participants. See above. > means leaving sheep alone with wolves No, it means consumers make the choice of whether or not to be sheep, and take the consequences. Which is the only way to actually regulate a market and have the regulation actually improve anything. The wolves can't prey on consumers who refuse to be sheep, and that choice is up to the consumer.
      - scheeseman486 4y ago
        Or, you know, you could shoot the wolves.
        4y ago
  - throw0101c 4y ago
    > The best way to regulate it is for people to stop buying HP printers. Except that there is always a new batch of people who don't know any better: * https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/ So companies can survive on that ignorance.
    - netsharc 4y ago
      But people would ask their knowledgeable friends, or Google, about what printer to buy. Where's the point where the bad reputation of the company grows enough that sales begin to decrease? Maybe they already are in a death-spiral, and that's why they're becoming more cunty about the ink... Next, HP should pay influencers to write/record rave reviews about their printers, so if someone googles what printer to buy they think HP is good.
  - EMIRELADERO 4y ago
    > The best way to regulate it is for people to stop buying HP printers. And to also outlaw those practices. Some things just shouldn't be left to market forces.
    - pdonis 4y ago
      > Some things just shouldn't be left to market forces. No things should be left to government regulators. They make things worse, not better. Regulatory capture is a thing. I'm sure HP would love it if government regulation entered this arena; sure, they might have to pay some costs of compliance, but their competitors, who don't have as deep pockets as they do, will be hurt worse than they are--meaning their market position will improve.
      - EMIRELADERO 4y ago
        You're letting perfect be the enemy of good. Government is not intrinsically bad. Regulations have achieved many good things. Just because there is corruption and abuses of power doesn't mean society should refrain from employing regulatory measures through their representatives. Healthy markets exist, in part, because of regulatory action, not in spite of it.
        atahanacar 4y ago
        And in a democracy, you can vote the government out. With a complete monopoly in a totally free market with no regulation, what can you do? Vote with your wallet even if it means you die from starvation? The end game is either complete extinction of humanity or anyone outside the monopoly becoming a slave for it.
        philwelch 4y ago
        > And in a democracy, you can vote the government out. Most of the government consists of unelected bureaucrats who cannot even be fired by the elected officials. > With a complete monopoly in a totally free market with no regulation, what can you do? Start your own competing firm. That sounds hard, sure, but try starting your own government and see how that works for you! > Vote with your wallet even if it means you die from starvation? The only food monopolies in history were run by governments, and they led to a lot of starvation.
  - hedora 4y ago
    The second best way is to only buy HP printers (without buying ink refills after the included set of supplies ran out). The last time I checked, this was roughly the same price as buying ink refills. Sadly, it is terrible for the environment, and probably wouldn’t correct their bad behavior.
- xadhominemx 4y ago
  There are multiple versions/types of HP printers. Some have higher price/high marfin printer hardware but either have very large toner/ink tanks that last for a long time and are very cheap per page, or allow third-party cartridges. Others have low printer prices/margins but lock you into more expensive HP ink. Your choice.
- unixhero 4y ago
  This is the answer
- bombcar 4y ago
  It has been regulated - in other industries. Cars went through this where the companies tried to ban you from using aftermarket parts and services by voiding your warranty. They got shot down.
leetrout 4y ago
Speaking of YC funding disruption where are the home printer startups? Is it just that unprofitable to even try? Or the hardware too difficult or tricky? Or the driver software? Seems like there are zero good alternatives for home printing. HP doing this stuff or making you subscribe to HP+. Brother offering basically zero support. Is epson or canon even competitive for a home printer?
- pdonis 4y ago
  > Brother offering basically zero support. I've had no problem finding Linux drivers for my Brother printers (or for their scanner components, since I've had all-in-ones for some time now), and they've never given me any problems that I needed any other support for.
  - xattt 4y ago
    Brother offers some ancient driver blob for my HL2270 which requires installation of 32-but dependencies in order to run. Yes, there are IPP/Gutenprint options out there, but sometimes I feel like the image quality of the Brother driver is slightly more superior in imperceptible ways.
  - antod 4y ago
    I don't have any printers at all any more, but yeah I always found that Brother was a good choice for a cheap but still somewhat reliable network capable duplex laser printer that was pretty easy to get working in Linux.
- tiedieconderoga 4y ago
  VCs tend to dislike manufacturing startups. It takes a lot of capital to get going, some time to get good yield & work out the early flaws, and there isn't much potential for a huge exit in 5-10 years. I'm more surprised that the printer market hasn't followed the security camera market, with lots of cheap and open options on markets like AliExpress that ship with phone-home firmware.
  - 4y ago
kidgorgeous 4y ago
It's about time HP did this...said no HP customer ever
rwaksmunski 4y ago
17 mentions of Ecotank on the 1st page of comments is a little bit sus. That said it's hard to beat older pre chip Brother laser printers for home use. Can often find a used one for around $50.
- readingnews 4y ago
  I am amazed no one talks about older HPs. I had a 4 with like 5million pages put through it, worked great. I am on a 4300DN now, in my house, got it used. Great printer. I would never buy any of their new stuff. My gosh, HP what happened? You used to make great test equipment. Then great calculators. Then great printers. Now, what? What do you do? Oh, I forgot, you give the customer a printer and hold them hostage. I guess it is the new business model.
  - sundvor 4y ago
    I had a HP LaserJet 4L back in the very early 90s, which I used with my Amiga. It was amazing. Still regret not taking it with me as I crossed the continents. I bought it with my own money from my newspaper delivery job when in high school, along with a legitimate copy of Pagestream. The quality and value / advantage I got out of this for my school and later university work was remarkable, just about no-one else (at my age) had anything resembling the same setup. Fond memories; sad to see this nosedive into DRM hell.
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      >Still regret not taking it with me as I crossed the continents. It probably wouldn't have worked on other continents due to different voltage and frequency. You'd need a huge and expensive adapter (laser printers use a LOT of power when printing). Back in the 90s, they didn't have adapters that could convert frequency. Generally, it's best to leave high-power appliances (or sell on Ebay) when you move between continents and buy new stuff at your new home.
      - sundvor 4y ago
sundvor 4y ago
This news story could be a massive ad for something like https://www.epson.com.au/v2/ecotank/ https://www.epson.com.au/v2/ecotank/ , which came up in the Reddit thread. I saw there (Porcomaster's reply) that you can get good third party ink as well, so that's really complete freedom which deserves being celebrated in contrast to HP. I'm on an old Epson Artisan cartridge based printer currently for colour photos, but want to replace it as they are just too painful and expensive. So meanwhile I have a cheap Brother laser printer for my black and white printing, which TBH is great for the occasional use. It's on an ultra low power sleep mode most of the time, and comes to life when it needs to.
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  Funnily enough I have a printer that refills like that, and it's HP. Paper and cheap syringes of toner are all it should need for a long time.
lchengify 4y ago
For those of you who haven't already, I highly recommend just biting the bullet and switching from HP to Brother for your home printing needs. I was a HP customer for decades. I had models going back to perforated paper dot-matrix printers. Finally last year I had a down-and-out fight to get my HP to do a basic task, and I bit the bullet and ordered a Brother at the recommendation of my friend. My mfc-l3750cdw Brother printer is a bit of a beast, but it does it's job amazingly well. It's 2x the size, weight, and price of my old HP but it's worth every penny for the peace of mind. It prints when I need it to print. It shuts down when it's not printing. It connects to wifi and doesn't try to serve me an ad while doing it. It uses ink logically. And I don't feel like I'm trying to resolve a problem that was effectively solved in 1995. The hard fact is that printers and copiers as a market has been shrinking (outside of China) for years now [1]. It's gone from a necessity to a niche need, and even then people have kinkos / WeWork / their parents house as a backup. HP isn't going back, just switch. Save yourself like I did. [1] https://www.statista.com/outlook/cmo/consumer-electronics/computing/printers-copiers/united-states https://www.statista.com/outlook/cmo/consumer-electronics/co...
- xbar 4y ago
  I'm keeping my HP color inkjet for what it's good at: scanning and printing in color. I'm buying a Brother laser today. I've hated this HP since I bought it, but it was a necessary evil for raising elementary school-aged children.
- kqr2 4y ago
  According to this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131, Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia ? If so, that's unfortunate.
  - shp0ngle 4y ago
    brother both inkjets and laser ones started doing exactly the same as the OP is talking about. I don’t know why people cut them so much slack.
    - 4y ago
arprocter 4y ago
The HP Smart app actually has a disclaimer mentioning 'non-OEM cartridges might be disabled if you install the firmware update' https://i.imgur.com/Xp4tElX.png https://i.imgur.com/Xp4tElX.png Apparently some printers can be downgraded via USB https://lucatnt.com/2022/06/downgrade-hp-pagewide-pro-477dw-firmware-to-fix-cartridge-drm/ https://lucatnt.com/2022/06/downgrade-hp-pagewide-pro-477dw-...
- userbinator 4y ago
  After that long paragraph which is basically saying "fuck you, bend over and take it", I'm surprised there's even a No button.
Algemarin 4y ago
What I find notable whenever something like this is in the news, is that these user-hostile features don't just manifest through abiogenesis, or spontaneous generation. User-hostile features are created by people. Just once, I would like to see an AMA by someone who was directly involved in creating a user-hostile feature - whether it's locking down printers or any of the countless other examples that come up on a weekly basis. (Being careful to make a throwaway account and obfuscate any particulars, of course). I would like to know, direct from the horse's mouth (and not from bike-shed bystanders), what goes on in the heads of the people who make these kinds of features. Do you just treat it as a source of income, with it not meriting any real internal ethical debate? ("Who cares, these are printers, not chemical weapons") Do you attempt to justify designing the features somehow? ("If people want to use HP printers, they should use HP cartridges") Really, I just want to understand why other people engage in behaviors which are explicitly designed to inconvenience, if not outright harm, other people. I have my own theories of course, but I really want to hear it from the people involved.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  > just want to understand why other people engage in behaviors which are explicitly designed to inconvenience, if not outright harm, other people These questions should be posed to executives at shareholder meetings. not cogs in the machine. When was an evil feature ever stopped by rank and file workers?
  - erikerikson 4y ago
    Regardless of any feelings one might towards Google, they rather publicly lost a big contact with the military due to worker revolt.
- NegativeLatency 4y ago
  Haven’t been in the exact situation you describe, but I have worked at some b2b saas companies and when I didn’t like the pricing schemes and the way management was making us squeeze customers I left. I’m not really in a a financial position to just say fuck it and leave at a moments notice, and it feels a bit different when you’re making Adobe for example pay extra money. I think we can all imagine the actual reason people in charge do it though: money
can16358p 4y ago
How is this even legal?
- adammunich 4y ago
  it’s not
inamberclad 4y ago
My canon printer has tanks that you simply refill with liquid ink. Higher up-front costs but now I have a printer with the majority of DRM eliminated.
nipperkinfeet 4y ago
HP printers are dreadful. Six years ago, I switched from my HP to a Brother HL-L2395DW, and I haven't turned back since. Have no more issues printing, jamming, installing bloated drivers, establishing a Wi-Fi connection, or obtaining third-party toner for it. The drum life is still at 98%.
userbinator 4y ago
The cat-and-mouse game escalates one more step... Who remembers the Epson chip resetters? Those were glorified EEPROM writers and the chips on cartridges back then were simple EEPROMs. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25054177 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25054177 ) Now, I believe there's nontrivial crypto involved; but just like other attempts at locking them out, expect the aftermarket to already be hard at work cracking this. It's probably legal to do so, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexmark_International,_Inc._v._Static_Control_Components,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexmark_International,_Inc._v.....
wanderingmind 4y ago
For home network printing, one way to get around such nonsense it to set a wrong gateway ip to the printer. This way, your printer is still detectable on LAN network, while it can never connect to WAN (or internet) to update any firmware
- vasvir 4y ago
  thanks for the advice. I did as you suggested. I have an older HP LaserJet M15w (2018). I live in Europe. I don't know if that matters but my printer hasn't been turned yet so hopefully with your trick I should be safe.
- imhoguy 4y ago
  Same can be achieved with parental control settings with most routers, all new devices can be cut off from the Internet by default, especially any IoT and call-home crap. Myself I run Samsung (HP) CLP-365W for over 10 years with cracked firmware for endless refills. The hardware itself is very good, just had to rotate feeder pull rubber to fix paper problem, but that is all.
mydogmuppet 4y ago
I recently looked at upgrading my two laser printers to models that were ethernet and wifi. I got burned so badly by Epson and Inkjet I'll never look at that technology again. Got the shock of my life at wifi printer hardware prices. Expensive. I've an ancient, tank like, Dell 5120cn that I bought new from Noahs Ark or was it eBay in 2005ish? Its lifetime page count has only just exceeded its monthly duty cycle. It will not die. A set of mfg. CMYB toners costs under $100 if purchased carefully. That's once every 3 years or so. The back up laser is a donkey slow but reliable HP laser jet 2605dn. Solid, dependable. It was donated to me, free with a 1200 page count. The mfg. toner prices are still steep, so I avoid, and go for 3rd party cartridges. A set of CMYB is $60. I've only just put one set in since 2010. I'll use these lasers till they or I die. Or I forget their lan IP address. Wifi connectivity is for the very rich. I'm of the opinion that if printer manufacturers in the EU try pulling any 'use only my ink or toner' stunts they'll be facing a very very expensive showdown with Brussels or Strasbourg.
- hedora 4y ago
  The top Amazon laser printers are monochrome Brother models. You can have wifi or duplex for $120. Both together costs $150. If you want color, duplex and wireless, it is $280. (Though I wonder if these have chipped toner or not.) It was similar 10 years ago when we bought our Samsung laser. These prices seem very reasonable, especially if you subtract out the cost of included drums and toner. Am I missing something?
- fy20 4y ago
  My parents have a Dell color laser print from ~10 years ago and it's amazing. It has ethernet and can scan-to-email with an auto document feeder. A full set of toners on Amazon was under $50 last time I bought some (they don't go through it much). I actually wanted to buy a new one for myself, but Dell are long out of the laser market and it doesn't seem like there is anything equivalent.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  Wi-Fi connectivity can be trivially addressed in multiple ways: * Linux computer (Raspberry Pi, router, etc) talking to the printer via USB and sharing it * Linux computer with wireless & Ethernet acting as a network bridge, bridging the Ethernet to the wireless network * Powerline/MoCa/etc adapter - it will be fine as printers don't need a lot of bandwidth
indigodaddy 4y ago
I have an old Laserjet M1217NFW that I just ordered a generic toner cartridge for. Hoping I’ll be ok, as I don’t think I’ve updated my drivers/software..
crooked-v 4y ago
I have the feeling this would make for an easy claim in small claims court, for anyone willing to spend the time on doing that.
saidinesh5 4y ago
Fwiw even their Android App has gone from Meh to Worse. It used to work well. Then they introduced mandatory user sign up/in. For local printing/scanning! And then started the white screen bugs. HP Smart is the only app on my Android that i pinned to a very old version and am never upgrading.
eshack94 4y ago
Guess I'll just have to ban HP printers from my home or office.
quantum_state 4y ago
This is clear indication that printer is on its way out as a tool …
ChuckMcM 4y ago
I've got an Epson Ecotank ET-7750 and really like it. (I'm kind of partial to wide format printers because schematics printed on them are easier on the eyes). That said, a really interesting startup would be an open source inkjet printer. (All the necessary patents have expired ones that are current revolve mostly around cartridges or cleaning systems). I suspect it is a kind of niche market as my kids tell me that "nobody prints things, we have it on our phone!" which I kind of understand, but point out you don't need multiple monitors to do code development if you have listing printed out :-).
- microtonal 4y ago
  ET-4750 here. So far (after ~two years) it has been great. We had one issue, but they repaired it quickly. But it's insanely cheap ink-wise and it's nice that we can use it to print both papers and photos. My only worry is long-time reliability, because it is very... plasticy.
- bcbrown 4y ago
  > you don't need multiple monitors to do code development if you have listing printed out Whenever I run into an especially intractable bug, one of the first techniques I attempt to use to solve it is to print out all the relevant source code and grab a conference room where I can lay it all out on the table.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    I can’t feel right with printed code listings unless a wide format dot matrix printed them on the green and white bar paper :)
- GiorgioG 4y ago
  I’ve had an ecotank since 2015 when they were first introduced. We’ve printed tens of thousands of pages. And I’ve probably spent less than $70 in ink. It’s on its last legs, and at the time it was an expensive purchase at $500, but we’ve gotten our money’s worth and we’ll be buying another ecotank soon.
pabs3 4y ago
Definitely well past time for open source printer firmware.
- sciencesama 4y ago
  or have the firmware hacked using ghirda :)
  - pabs3 4y ago
    There could be unknown other nastiness in there, I'd much rather have open firmware.
aidenn0 4y ago
I just wish I could get a sheet-feed duplex scanner that isn't attached to a printer for anywhere near the price of an all-in-one...
BiteCode_dev 4y ago
What's amazing about all it is that HP being hostile to its own customers is nothing new: - In 2005, they had one printer that refused to print if the cartridge was past a certain date, even if full. Several also underestimated the volume of ink in cartridges and told you it was empty when not. - In 2007, HP refused to honor hardware warranty if you install any other OS on their laptop. - in 2010, HP refused to provide drivers for the new windows Vista for its old ScanJet scanners (linux worked fine though). - in 2020 they hardcoded the path to the EFI of their laptop to be windows only. That's just the examples I could easily google, I remember that HP was having one scandal every 6 months in 2000, and we didn't have twitter back then. So if a brand has been very publicly misbehaving for 2 decades, how does it still have customers? Well, Facebook has still a billion users. Microsoft is now considered the father of unicorns and rainbows. Oracle is still making banks, one of my biggest client just migrated to it. So the so-called cancel culture seems very superficial to me: lots of noise, but very actual consumer behavioral change. The brands can get away with anything and thrive. Maybe they'll get a little bit of heat for a few months on social media, so what? But the bottom line is: if you are a big company, just do whatever makes you money. You don't need reputation.
- VHRanger 4y ago
  A client of yours migrated TO Oracle in 2023? What are they smoking
  - BiteCode_dev 4y ago
    Not what. Whom with.
  - wil421 4y ago
    I think you drastically underestimate Oracle and SAP in the enterprise world. There’s not many companies that can provide all the mundane business management tools for a huge variety of business like an ATM manufacturer, an oil and gas company, a massive hotel chain, or a financial services company. The tech is not sexy by any means but it can run businesses from top to bottom.
lynx23 4y ago
"Klicken sie hier um mehr über den HP TouchPoint Manger zu erfahren." Never ever will I personally buy a HP product again.
Woodi 4y ago
Here in small bakery office we was happy with simple HP 1018/1020/1022 and didn't wanted anything more featureful. Or crapfull. But sometimes they stop printing - usually with new cups update. So after 20 years back and forth (with trips to Brother and Epson) we will switch to plain dumb Postscript printers (not as dumb as win printers) - just: lpr docname And it will not be HP.
zeruch 4y ago
My current printer is being quite resilient, but once it dies, my relationship with HP does also (which goes back decades...I already replaced my last scanner similarly last year) as there is nothing left in HP worth supporting.
counterpartyrsk 4y ago
I too am happy with my Brother
neilv 4y ago
If you have a modern HP printer that currently works fine, and you want to delay buying a different brand, you might want to: 1. be using open source drivers (e.g., one of the CUPS PCL drivers, preferably on Linux or BSD) on all possible clients; 2. isolate the printer from direct network access (e.g., don't connect printer's Ethernet or WiFi, and instead run CUPS on a RasPi, which talks to the printer only via USB); and 3. consider limiting which devices can access your print server (i.e., via routing VLANs and/or authentication/authorization). This isn't perfect: * there are still ways that the printer can get firmware changes against your wishes; * still ways that it can leak information to HP; * still ways it's vulnerable to attacks by others; and * might be awkward to explain when a visitor to your home/office needs to print something. But I decided the headache of isolating the HP printer a bit (especially from HP), was less than the likely headache of trusting HP more. (Which is kinda sad, since the company previously known as HP was great.)
- ornornor 4y ago
  With the right firewall rules it doesn’t have to be a headache. You can have the printer usable from local networks only and not get internet at all. What does it need it for anyway?
  - thombat 4y ago
    Try blocking it and see. My last HP inkjet would refuse to print off it hadn't phoned home for permission within some timeframe.
    - ornornor 4y ago
      I should add I'm talking about workgroup/enterprise class laser printers.
- indrora 4y ago
  Newer HP printers are also beginning to simply refuse to work without first being connected to wifi, even if there's a USB connection. I've seen it happen to two friends of mine. Outright refuses to not connect to a wifi network, uses its own DNS and all. CUPS PCL drivers for these devices are nonexistent. You're at this point forced to use HP's windows software which *emulates a Parallel port* in at least one case.
mettamage 4y ago
I’m fed up with hp too and know nothing about printers m. I read a lot about brother and epson. Is that what you would recommend? I need to print 50 pages per year. I feel really clueless
- naeq 4y ago
  I'm past Canon printer user, when I bought Brother I was struck, that printing can be so effortless.
- deely3 4y ago
  I bought inkjet Canon Pixma with refilling tanks and Im pretty happy with it. I print colorful A4 every day, sometime bw pages, recently printed two b/w books and one colorful. I use it for two years and so far I spent like $8-12 on ink refills.
- bombcar 4y ago
  I have a brother b/w laser - if I need color I can print at Kinkos or Walmart.
reflexe 4y ago
I used to work in the ink cartridge industry. This is not new. HP has been actively blocking non-HP cartridges for at least 10y. The issue is that there is a cat and mouse game between an handful HP "alternative cartridges" manufacturers and HP. HP is actively trying to detect and block non-HP cartridges while the manufacturers find a way to bypass it. What probably has happened here is that HP had pushed a SW upgrade that detects non-HP cartridges a bit better. The manufacturers probably already found a way to bypass it and new cartridges will work on this firmware.
- usrusr 4y ago
  Reading the headline I was half jokingly wondering if they did those lockdown updates like a one-off project each time or if they already have a routine schedule, like a key change mid-March every second year.
jp0d 4y ago
Has anyone used Kyocera or Lexmark laser printers? I was considering buying a laser printer and HP was on the bottom of my list to consider. Thanks to their action I can exclude that option.
- Foobar8568 4y ago
  I have a Kyocera P5021cdn, I can't complain but I am not a power user, it has been there for a bit over than one year, I wanted a "cheap"/network printer with a perceive good quality.
  - jp0d 4y ago
    Thanks mate. I'm in Australia and have seen these products online. Most of of them have good reviews. Could I bother you with a few more questions? 1. Have you replaced the toner yet? Does it accept non-brand toners (like the ones from InkStation?)? 2. Does the printer come with a full toner? As it with 100% capacity or does it only come with 20 to 30% like some of the other brands? 3. Being a colour printer, does it work only with the black toner if don't need colour prints? Thank you!
    - Foobar8568 4y ago
      Hello, I haven't replaced the toner yet, Kyocera doesn't recommend to use 3rd party one. I am not sure if I will go with original one as the one from my printer was supposed to be rate for 1200 pages, but the black has 35% ink left after printing 220 "black" pages, and CMY@65% after 350 full color pages. Supposedly, it could print with only the black toner through a setting, but people online complained they couldn't. I think I will try the 3rd party toner, it's basically 80CHF per toner, 350CHF to replace the 4 of them, which would be over the cost of the printer itself, but they are rated for 2200 pages vs 1200 for included one. Finally, I am a bit wary on the long term support from the manufacturer, my printer is not listed anymore on their website, nor their official compatible toner.
      - jp0d 4y ago
ornornor 4y ago
Fwiw I bought a used HP M405dne (workgroup class) for a pitance used. I stuck a GL iNet thing on the Ethernet port to get wifi on it. It has an option to enable firmware downgrades and happily takes third party toner. I pay something like 25$ every 3–4 years. Maybe this is only happening to home office type printers and not to enterprise?
voytec 4y ago
It's not their printers but their customers' printers.
haylem 4y ago
I'm honestly a bit confused by the comments. I've had and installed only 5 home printers over my entire life (excluding professional printers at works) One was an already refurbished dinosaur from Xerox. 1 was a canon (would have to look for the model). The other 3 are HP LaserJet 100 Color MFP M175nw. All 5 have lasted over 10 years, the MFPs being the youngest at 12 years. That Xerox one was still going with after 20, it was just slow. And 1 of the HPs may be replaced for that reason, as apparently waiting 20s for a page is now too long for my family members, which I can't fathom for a single page of paper once in a while. Not a single technical issue with any of these. Not a huge test sample, but that makes me wonder: 1/ What do you people do with their printers? During the most active period, I printed about 2000 pages / year, which was already too much, and was mostly because of the kids when they were younger and when someone I knew had to deal with a lot of paperwork with an administration, and maybe one year when finishing my studies where I printed a crap load of reports. 2/ What's the failure rate on these things?? 3/ When did we decide that "over a decade" is an achievement to be noteworthy for any piece of equipment worth a decent amount of money? EDIT: My only gripe was the disappearance of ChromePrint. That bugged me quite a bit. Unrelated to the printers, though. Those MFPs work fine with HP Print, default print drivers, CUPS, etc... on Windows/Mac/Linux/Android/iOS.
- bombcar 4y ago
  For the 20s wait - try moving the printer 20s away from everyone. I put one in the far corner of the living room and by the time you walk to it it’s already done printing.
  - neogodless 4y ago
    Yup - printer is in my office. I don't really use it, but my spouse does. But by the time they've walked up the stairs it's usually done, so the tardiness isn't a concern.
  - haylem 4y ago
    It's already as far away as I possibly can. I'm afraid you overestimate the size of my housing. It's a good tip, though. But with mobile phones now, people tend to start printing already on their way to the room and then stare at the printer and wonder if it's OFF, starting up, pending, or if for some reason it decided whatever PDF they were printing was a bit too annoying to print (I do have occasional buffering issues with some of these printers, as I suspect their available memory/disk storage isn't great).
mnot 4y ago
Not in Australia, they won’t.
acd 4y ago
How does this work with anti competition? The Sherman Antitrust Act would prohibit printer manufacturers from engaging in anti-competitive practices such as locking out third-party printer cartridges. Under the law, monopolistic or anti-competitive practices are illegal and may be subject to government enforcement. To quote the sherman act "Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal" (Shermanj Antitrust Act, 15 U.S.C.A. § 1). Sherman anti trust act: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/antitrust-laws https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...
- revlolz 4y ago
  Captured FTC regulators likely won't do anything.
noja 4y ago
This sounds illegal. They are changing the product you bought to make it do less.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
throwawaylinux 4y ago
I had a trusty Bother MFC for years. It recently broke and I was looking around for another one when I realized that I might print a handful of things a year, so I used a printing service. Pretty painless experience and very wide range of options for quality and size if I ever needed that would be totally out of reach of even a very expensive home printer setup. Per-page for basic black text is a lot more than you could do with a laser printer but even a very cheap printer costs more than the combined cost of what I'm likely to ever print again. If my prediction is wrong and I find myself printing vast amounts of things I can buy a printer and eat loss of a few bucks. Feels good to have one less "thing" too.
- bombcar 4y ago
  And in an emergency many libraries have a simple printer available - email the PDF to yourself and run over to print. I already just use Walmart or similar for all my color needs.
dghughes 4y ago
I have an HP colour laser printer MFP just small home one. HP changed something a few years ago forcing people to log in to use their printer. I can't recall what happened but I was able to find a workaround or HP changed or cancelled that demand. I think the problem as stated in comments is money obviously. But it's the loss of the home market. The "desktop publishing" craze is gone and now it's older people who have printers. That's a big loss of revenue. Printers at home seem to be alien to anyone under the age of 40.
funcDropShadow 4y ago
Shouldn't the title corrected to say "HP have downgraded their printers to ban `non-HP` cartridges"?
laurencerowe 4y ago
This is terrible but next time I buy a printer it’ll probably just be the cheapest laser again since I barely get through a couple of reams of paper a decade. I currently have a cheap Dell I bought for $80 years ago. I was able to put in a new off brand toner cartridge recently but the driver only barely works on a modern Mac and I expect it will stop working completely in a major version or two.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Dell had some nice printers even if they were manufactured by someone else. I was sad to see them discontinue. You may be able to use a generic driver that comes with MacOS for your Dell.
hgsgm 4y ago
Stop using inkjets. Stop using inkjets.
1970-01-01 4y ago
It's been 50+ years since Stallman's printer hack. Where is the open source printer?
egberts1 4y ago
Take a peek at the expansive 120+ executive staff of Hewlett Packard IPG. Somebody needs more consumer money to pay for all that salary (cows). So, of course, they would need to milk that skinny cow even harder while making it look prettier with a lipstick. Even has a leash (software) that is too long and cumbersome to manage. Never mind how anemic these "cows" look, they're light and still functional even when infested with bloated features that often contract virus and bacteria. They'll keep on flogging these "cows" until it looks like a "horse", but just plain non-functional, stomach-bloated, back-arched, and ... dead. These exec team probably knows no soul worth saving and should not be considered an asset for your budding garage company, lest they become available on labor market. I am an old foggity whose dreams comprise of hardy folks that started these businesses out of their own home garage and a pair of ungrounded outlets. To my garage-aspired brothers, stick with a Brothers and you can do no wrong as I've slowly replaced all my HPs with Brothers over last 2 decades. - former faithful but disillusioned 48-year user of Hewlett Packard printers, former then roommate of former Epson device driver developer, and a device driver maintainer of the wonderful Xerox 1200 "laser" since 1987. https://www.hp.com/us-en/hp-information/executive-team/team.html https://www.hp.com/us-en/hp-information/executive-team/team....
Bhilai 4y ago
So I needed a new printer last year and went to the local Best Buy and picked up a reasonably priced HP printer. I got HP cartridges from Amazon. When I tried to install the cartridges, the printer kept saying they were not genuine or there was some other problem. I thought maybe Amazon seller duped me into buying counterfeits so I went to the Best Buy store where I bought the printer from and bought the 'original' HP cartridges they sell. But the printer would not accept even those so I called Best Buy geek squad folks and they asked me to bring the printer in. Best Buy folks tried several different HP original cartridges and one of them finally worked, no one knows why. Best Buy folks were apologetic and gave me a full refund on the printer and the cartridges and I swore never to buy HP printers again. Pretty happy with my Canon printer.
bigger_inside 4y ago
This is why I block all updates I can block. The security narrative is the piggy on which the control fantasies ride.
tracker1 4y ago
This behavior is just plain bad. While I have used HP Laser printers for decades now (current is about 8-9yo color) and tended to stick with HP high capacity toner, I don't like locking these things down any more than they already are. That said, I've only had to swap toner about once every 5 years or so with how little I actually print. Brother is probably where I'll go for my next device.
taylodl 4y ago
Would this be covered by proposed right-to-repair laws? Imagine if auto manufacturers said you can only use their parts and if you didn't your car would refuse to run?
aetherspawn 4y ago
I keep getting told the #1 reason that Fuji Xerox printers die is the non genuine toners. If that’s the case, is it evil to restrict cartridges to protect the image of your brand? If I was manufacturing enterprise printers, I would probably say no. With manufacturers taking the absolute cheapest and minimum effort possible to manufacture things, and yet being nearly indistinguishable from the real deal online (think: all the dodgy portable hard drives on Amazon that are either just interfaces to SD cards or just fake), can you blame them?
l8rlump 4y ago
Not only this, but our HP Pagewide inkjet machine will even refuse to use genuine ink if it’s “out of date”. I.e, its manufacture date was more than a couple of years ago. Also consider that the ink can sit on the shelf at the store or Managed Service Provider for this entire time and therefore go into landfill without ever being used in a machine.

418 points by imalerba 4y ago

I'm amazed that this hasn't been regulated. Aftermarket commodities being turned into walled gardens based not on physical incompatibility but software checks is obscene. Does the EU have defenses against this kind of behavior? I feel like monopolistic is the wrong word. Creating captive markets?

pdonis 4y ago
> I'm amazed that this hasn't been regulated. The best way to regulate it is for people to stop buying HP printers. I haven't bought one for about 20 years.
- nhchris 4y ago
  Thanks to ongoing consolidation of large manufacturing firms, this kind of attitude quickly leads to having nothing to buy. The only solution is collective bargaining in the form of regulation.
- atahanacar 4y ago
  Ideally, and by that I mean the average consumer is well-informed in every product they purchase, yes. But the average customer really doesn't know any better. You can't expect people to know an alternative exists when and unregulated market will always promote marketing over quality. >I haven't bought one for about 20 years. Just the fact that you are commenting on HN shows that you aren't the average consumer when it comes to electronics. People tend to overestimate the others' knowledge on topics they themselves are familiar with. A considerable chunk of printer "consumers" don't even know the difference between an inkjet and a laser printer. We can blame them all we want because they aren't "doing their research before spending money", but we don't even know what we are wasting our money on, especially with thing we aren't that knowledgeable about. Everyone values their time differently, so they may or may not research something before purchase depending on what they are buying. In short, no regulation means leaving sheep alone with wolves.
  - pdonis 4y ago
    > unregulated market There is no such thing as an unregulated market. The only meaningful difference is between a free market--a market that is regulated solely by the voluntary choices of market participants--and a non-free market--which is at least to some degree also regulated by rules dictated and enforced by entities who are not market participants (the most common such entities, of course, being governments). Both types of markets are regulated; they're just regulated by different mechanisms. > will always promote marketing over quality No, a market in which consumers are either unable to perceive quality, or are unwilling to take the time to do so (possibly for rational reasons such as the lack of time or the product being so cheap that it's not worth the effort) will always promote marketing over quality. But that doesn't mean this is a "problem" that either needs to be or can be fixed by outside regulation. It can't be fixed by outside regulation because outside regulation makes the problem worse, not better; it makes consumers think their interests are being protected, when in fact regulatory capture means all that is really happening is that the biggest players are getting further entrenched because the cost of regulatory compliance shuts out potential competitors. It doesn't need to be fixed because consumers have the choice of what to buy or not to buy, and if they either can't or won't (again, possibly for rational reasons) take the time to choose based on quality, either they don't buy at all or they choose based on something else, and take the consequences. That's what not taking the time to perceive quality means: you choose to be at the mercy of whatever marketing or other information you do use to determine what to buy (or whether to buy), however unreliable it is. > no regulation More precisely, absence of outside regulation from entities like governments that are not market participants. See above. > means leaving sheep alone with wolves No, it means consumers make the choice of whether or not to be sheep, and take the consequences. Which is the only way to actually regulate a market and have the regulation actually improve anything. The wolves can't prey on consumers who refuse to be sheep, and that choice is up to the consumer.
    - scheeseman486 4y ago
      Or, you know, you could shoot the wolves.
      - 4y ago
- throw0101c 4y ago
  > The best way to regulate it is for people to stop buying HP printers. Except that there is always a new batch of people who don't know any better: * https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/ So companies can survive on that ignorance.
  - netsharc 4y ago
    But people would ask their knowledgeable friends, or Google, about what printer to buy. Where's the point where the bad reputation of the company grows enough that sales begin to decrease? Maybe they already are in a death-spiral, and that's why they're becoming more cunty about the ink... Next, HP should pay influencers to write/record rave reviews about their printers, so if someone googles what printer to buy they think HP is good.
- EMIRELADERO 4y ago
  > The best way to regulate it is for people to stop buying HP printers. And to also outlaw those practices. Some things just shouldn't be left to market forces.
  - pdonis 4y ago
    > Some things just shouldn't be left to market forces. No things should be left to government regulators. They make things worse, not better. Regulatory capture is a thing. I'm sure HP would love it if government regulation entered this arena; sure, they might have to pay some costs of compliance, but their competitors, who don't have as deep pockets as they do, will be hurt worse than they are--meaning their market position will improve.
    - EMIRELADERO 4y ago
      You're letting perfect be the enemy of good. Government is not intrinsically bad. Regulations have achieved many good things. Just because there is corruption and abuses of power doesn't mean society should refrain from employing regulatory measures through their representatives. Healthy markets exist, in part, because of regulatory action, not in spite of it.
      - atahanacar 4y ago
        And in a democracy, you can vote the government out. With a complete monopoly in a totally free market with no regulation, what can you do? Vote with your wallet even if it means you die from starvation? The end game is either complete extinction of humanity or anyone outside the monopoly becoming a slave for it.
        philwelch 4y ago
        > And in a democracy, you can vote the government out. Most of the government consists of unelected bureaucrats who cannot even be fired by the elected officials. > With a complete monopoly in a totally free market with no regulation, what can you do? Start your own competing firm. That sounds hard, sure, but try starting your own government and see how that works for you! > Vote with your wallet even if it means you die from starvation? The only food monopolies in history were run by governments, and they led to a lot of starvation.
- hedora 4y ago
  The second best way is to only buy HP printers (without buying ink refills after the included set of supplies ran out). The last time I checked, this was roughly the same price as buying ink refills. Sadly, it is terrible for the environment, and probably wouldn’t correct their bad behavior.
xadhominemx 4y ago
There are multiple versions/types of HP printers. Some have higher price/high marfin printer hardware but either have very large toner/ink tanks that last for a long time and are very cheap per page, or allow third-party cartridges. Others have low printer prices/margins but lock you into more expensive HP ink. Your choice.
unixhero 4y ago
This is the answer
bombcar 4y ago
It has been regulated - in other industries. Cars went through this where the companies tried to ban you from using aftermarket parts and services by voiding your warranty. They got shot down.

leetrout 4y ago

Speaking of YC funding disruption where are the home printer startups? Is it just that unprofitable to even try? Or the hardware too difficult or tricky? Or the driver software? Seems like there are zero good alternatives for home printing. HP doing this stuff or making you subscribe to HP+. Brother offering basically zero support. Is epson or canon even competitive for a home printer?

pdonis 4y ago
> Brother offering basically zero support. I've had no problem finding Linux drivers for my Brother printers (or for their scanner components, since I've had all-in-ones for some time now), and they've never given me any problems that I needed any other support for.
- xattt 4y ago
  Brother offers some ancient driver blob for my HL2270 which requires installation of 32-but dependencies in order to run. Yes, there are IPP/Gutenprint options out there, but sometimes I feel like the image quality of the Brother driver is slightly more superior in imperceptible ways.
- antod 4y ago
  I don't have any printers at all any more, but yeah I always found that Brother was a good choice for a cheap but still somewhat reliable network capable duplex laser printer that was pretty easy to get working in Linux.
tiedieconderoga 4y ago
VCs tend to dislike manufacturing startups. It takes a lot of capital to get going, some time to get good yield & work out the early flaws, and there isn't much potential for a huge exit in 5-10 years. I'm more surprised that the printer market hasn't followed the security camera market, with lots of cheap and open options on markets like AliExpress that ship with phone-home firmware.
- 4y ago

kidgorgeous 4y ago

It's about time HP did this...said no HP customer ever

rwaksmunski 4y ago

17 mentions of Ecotank on the 1st page of comments is a little bit sus. That said it's hard to beat older pre chip Brother laser printers for home use. Can often find a used one for around $50.

readingnews 4y ago
I am amazed no one talks about older HPs. I had a 4 with like 5million pages put through it, worked great. I am on a 4300DN now, in my house, got it used. Great printer. I would never buy any of their new stuff. My gosh, HP what happened? You used to make great test equipment. Then great calculators. Then great printers. Now, what? What do you do? Oh, I forgot, you give the customer a printer and hold them hostage. I guess it is the new business model.
- sundvor 4y ago
  I had a HP LaserJet 4L back in the very early 90s, which I used with my Amiga. It was amazing. Still regret not taking it with me as I crossed the continents. I bought it with my own money from my newspaper delivery job when in high school, along with a legitimate copy of Pagestream. The quality and value / advantage I got out of this for my school and later university work was remarkable, just about no-one else (at my age) had anything resembling the same setup. Fond memories; sad to see this nosedive into DRM hell.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    >Still regret not taking it with me as I crossed the continents. It probably wouldn't have worked on other continents due to different voltage and frequency. You'd need a huge and expensive adapter (laser printers use a LOT of power when printing). Back in the 90s, they didn't have adapters that could convert frequency. Generally, it's best to leave high-power appliances (or sell on Ebay) when you move between continents and buy new stuff at your new home.
    - sundvor 4y ago

sundvor 4y ago

This news story could be a massive ad for something like https://www.epson.com.au/v2/ecotank/ https://www.epson.com.au/v2/ecotank/ , which came up in the Reddit thread. I saw there (Porcomaster's reply) that you can get good third party ink as well, so that's really complete freedom which deserves being celebrated in contrast to HP. I'm on an old Epson Artisan cartridge based printer currently for colour photos, but want to replace it as they are just too painful and expensive. So meanwhile I have a cheap Brother laser printer for my black and white printing, which TBH is great for the occasional use. It's on an ultra low power sleep mode most of the time, and comes to life when it needs to.

Dylan16807 4y ago
Funnily enough I have a printer that refills like that, and it's HP. Paper and cheap syringes of toner are all it should need for a long time.

lchengify 4y ago

For those of you who haven't already, I highly recommend just biting the bullet and switching from HP to Brother for your home printing needs. I was a HP customer for decades. I had models going back to perforated paper dot-matrix printers. Finally last year I had a down-and-out fight to get my HP to do a basic task, and I bit the bullet and ordered a Brother at the recommendation of my friend. My mfc-l3750cdw Brother printer is a bit of a beast, but it does it's job amazingly well. It's 2x the size, weight, and price of my old HP but it's worth every penny for the peace of mind. It prints when I need it to print. It shuts down when it's not printing. It connects to wifi and doesn't try to serve me an ad while doing it. It uses ink logically. And I don't feel like I'm trying to resolve a problem that was effectively solved in 1995. The hard fact is that printers and copiers as a market has been shrinking (outside of China) for years now [1]. It's gone from a necessity to a niche need, and even then people have kinkos / WeWork / their parents house as a backup. HP isn't going back, just switch. Save yourself like I did. [1] https://www.statista.com/outlook/cmo/consumer-electronics/computing/printers-copiers/united-states https://www.statista.com/outlook/cmo/consumer-electronics/co...

xbar 4y ago
I'm keeping my HP color inkjet for what it's good at: scanning and printing in color. I'm buying a Brother laser today. I've hated this HP since I bought it, but it was a necessary evil for raising elementary school-aged children.
kqr2 4y ago
According to this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131, Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia ? If so, that's unfortunate.
- shp0ngle 4y ago
  brother both inkjets and laser ones started doing exactly the same as the OP is talking about. I don’t know why people cut them so much slack.
  - 4y ago

arprocter 4y ago

The HP Smart app actually has a disclaimer mentioning 'non-OEM cartridges might be disabled if you install the firmware update' https://i.imgur.com/Xp4tElX.png https://i.imgur.com/Xp4tElX.png Apparently some printers can be downgraded via USB https://lucatnt.com/2022/06/downgrade-hp-pagewide-pro-477dw-firmware-to-fix-cartridge-drm/ https://lucatnt.com/2022/06/downgrade-hp-pagewide-pro-477dw-...

userbinator 4y ago
After that long paragraph which is basically saying "fuck you, bend over and take it", I'm surprised there's even a No button.

Algemarin 4y ago

What I find notable whenever something like this is in the news, is that these user-hostile features don't just manifest through abiogenesis, or spontaneous generation. User-hostile features are created by people. Just once, I would like to see an AMA by someone who was directly involved in creating a user-hostile feature - whether it's locking down printers or any of the countless other examples that come up on a weekly basis. (Being careful to make a throwaway account and obfuscate any particulars, of course). I would like to know, direct from the horse's mouth (and not from bike-shed bystanders), what goes on in the heads of the people who make these kinds of features. Do you just treat it as a source of income, with it not meriting any real internal ethical debate? ("Who cares, these are printers, not chemical weapons") Do you attempt to justify designing the features somehow? ("If people want to use HP printers, they should use HP cartridges") Really, I just want to understand why other people engage in behaviors which are explicitly designed to inconvenience, if not outright harm, other people. I have my own theories of course, but I really want to hear it from the people involved.

ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> just want to understand why other people engage in behaviors which are explicitly designed to inconvenience, if not outright harm, other people These questions should be posed to executives at shareholder meetings. not cogs in the machine. When was an evil feature ever stopped by rank and file workers?
- erikerikson 4y ago
  Regardless of any feelings one might towards Google, they rather publicly lost a big contact with the military due to worker revolt.
NegativeLatency 4y ago
Haven’t been in the exact situation you describe, but I have worked at some b2b saas companies and when I didn’t like the pricing schemes and the way management was making us squeeze customers I left. I’m not really in a a financial position to just say fuck it and leave at a moments notice, and it feels a bit different when you’re making Adobe for example pay extra money. I think we can all imagine the actual reason people in charge do it though: money

can16358p 4y ago

How is this even legal?

adammunich 4y ago
it’s not

inamberclad 4y ago

My canon printer has tanks that you simply refill with liquid ink. Higher up-front costs but now I have a printer with the majority of DRM eliminated.

nipperkinfeet 4y ago

HP printers are dreadful. Six years ago, I switched from my HP to a Brother HL-L2395DW, and I haven't turned back since. Have no more issues printing, jamming, installing bloated drivers, establishing a Wi-Fi connection, or obtaining third-party toner for it. The drum life is still at 98%.

userbinator 4y ago

The cat-and-mouse game escalates one more step... Who remembers the Epson chip resetters? Those were glorified EEPROM writers and the chips on cartridges back then were simple EEPROMs. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25054177 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25054177 ) Now, I believe there's nontrivial crypto involved; but just like other attempts at locking them out, expect the aftermarket to already be hard at work cracking this. It's probably legal to do so, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexmark_International,_Inc._v._Static_Control_Components,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexmark_International,_Inc._v.....

wanderingmind 4y ago

For home network printing, one way to get around such nonsense it to set a wrong gateway ip to the printer. This way, your printer is still detectable on LAN network, while it can never connect to WAN (or internet) to update any firmware

vasvir 4y ago
thanks for the advice. I did as you suggested. I have an older HP LaserJet M15w (2018). I live in Europe. I don't know if that matters but my printer hasn't been turned yet so hopefully with your trick I should be safe.
imhoguy 4y ago
Same can be achieved with parental control settings with most routers, all new devices can be cut off from the Internet by default, especially any IoT and call-home crap. Myself I run Samsung (HP) CLP-365W for over 10 years with cracked firmware for endless refills. The hardware itself is very good, just had to rotate feeder pull rubber to fix paper problem, but that is all.

mydogmuppet 4y ago

I recently looked at upgrading my two laser printers to models that were ethernet and wifi. I got burned so badly by Epson and Inkjet I'll never look at that technology again. Got the shock of my life at wifi printer hardware prices. Expensive. I've an ancient, tank like, Dell 5120cn that I bought new from Noahs Ark or was it eBay in 2005ish? Its lifetime page count has only just exceeded its monthly duty cycle. It will not die. A set of mfg. CMYB toners costs under $100 if purchased carefully. That's once every 3 years or so. The back up laser is a donkey slow but reliable HP laser jet 2605dn. Solid, dependable. It was donated to me, free with a 1200 page count. The mfg. toner prices are still steep, so I avoid, and go for 3rd party cartridges. A set of CMYB is $60. I've only just put one set in since 2010. I'll use these lasers till they or I die. Or I forget their lan IP address. Wifi connectivity is for the very rich. I'm of the opinion that if printer manufacturers in the EU try pulling any 'use only my ink or toner' stunts they'll be facing a very very expensive showdown with Brussels or Strasbourg.

hedora 4y ago
The top Amazon laser printers are monochrome Brother models. You can have wifi or duplex for $120. Both together costs $150. If you want color, duplex and wireless, it is $280. (Though I wonder if these have chipped toner or not.) It was similar 10 years ago when we bought our Samsung laser. These prices seem very reasonable, especially if you subtract out the cost of included drums and toner. Am I missing something?
fy20 4y ago
My parents have a Dell color laser print from ~10 years ago and it's amazing. It has ethernet and can scan-to-email with an auto document feeder. A full set of toners on Amazon was under $50 last time I bought some (they don't go through it much). I actually wanted to buy a new one for myself, but Dell are long out of the laser market and it doesn't seem like there is anything equivalent.
Nextgrid 4y ago
Wi-Fi connectivity can be trivially addressed in multiple ways: * Linux computer (Raspberry Pi, router, etc) talking to the printer via USB and sharing it * Linux computer with wireless & Ethernet acting as a network bridge, bridging the Ethernet to the wireless network * Powerline/MoCa/etc adapter - it will be fine as printers don't need a lot of bandwidth

indigodaddy 4y ago

I have an old Laserjet M1217NFW that I just ordered a generic toner cartridge for. Hoping I’ll be ok, as I don’t think I’ve updated my drivers/software..

crooked-v 4y ago

I have the feeling this would make for an easy claim in small claims court, for anyone willing to spend the time on doing that.

saidinesh5 4y ago

Fwiw even their Android App has gone from Meh to Worse. It used to work well. Then they introduced mandatory user sign up/in. For local printing/scanning! And then started the white screen bugs. HP Smart is the only app on my Android that i pinned to a very old version and am never upgrading.

eshack94 4y ago

Guess I'll just have to ban HP printers from my home or office.

quantum_state 4y ago

This is clear indication that printer is on its way out as a tool …

ChuckMcM 4y ago

I've got an Epson Ecotank ET-7750 and really like it. (I'm kind of partial to wide format printers because schematics printed on them are easier on the eyes). That said, a really interesting startup would be an open source inkjet printer. (All the necessary patents have expired ones that are current revolve mostly around cartridges or cleaning systems). I suspect it is a kind of niche market as my kids tell me that "nobody prints things, we have it on our phone!" which I kind of understand, but point out you don't need multiple monitors to do code development if you have listing printed out :-).

microtonal 4y ago
ET-4750 here. So far (after ~two years) it has been great. We had one issue, but they repaired it quickly. But it's insanely cheap ink-wise and it's nice that we can use it to print both papers and photos. My only worry is long-time reliability, because it is very... plasticy.
bcbrown 4y ago
> you don't need multiple monitors to do code development if you have listing printed out Whenever I run into an especially intractable bug, one of the first techniques I attempt to use to solve it is to print out all the relevant source code and grab a conference room where I can lay it all out on the table.
- bombcar 4y ago
  I can’t feel right with printed code listings unless a wide format dot matrix printed them on the green and white bar paper :)
GiorgioG 4y ago
I’ve had an ecotank since 2015 when they were first introduced. We’ve printed tens of thousands of pages. And I’ve probably spent less than $70 in ink. It’s on its last legs, and at the time it was an expensive purchase at $500, but we’ve gotten our money’s worth and we’ll be buying another ecotank soon.

pabs3 4y ago

Definitely well past time for open source printer firmware.

sciencesama 4y ago
or have the firmware hacked using ghirda :)
- pabs3 4y ago
  There could be unknown other nastiness in there, I'd much rather have open firmware.

aidenn0 4y ago

I just wish I could get a sheet-feed duplex scanner that isn't attached to a printer for anywhere near the price of an all-in-one...

BiteCode_dev 4y ago

What's amazing about all it is that HP being hostile to its own customers is nothing new: - In 2005, they had one printer that refused to print if the cartridge was past a certain date, even if full. Several also underestimated the volume of ink in cartridges and told you it was empty when not. - In 2007, HP refused to honor hardware warranty if you install any other OS on their laptop. - in 2010, HP refused to provide drivers for the new windows Vista for its old ScanJet scanners (linux worked fine though). - in 2020 they hardcoded the path to the EFI of their laptop to be windows only. That's just the examples I could easily google, I remember that HP was having one scandal every 6 months in 2000, and we didn't have twitter back then. So if a brand has been very publicly misbehaving for 2 decades, how does it still have customers? Well, Facebook has still a billion users. Microsoft is now considered the father of unicorns and rainbows. Oracle is still making banks, one of my biggest client just migrated to it. So the so-called cancel culture seems very superficial to me: lots of noise, but very actual consumer behavioral change. The brands can get away with anything and thrive. Maybe they'll get a little bit of heat for a few months on social media, so what? But the bottom line is: if you are a big company, just do whatever makes you money. You don't need reputation.

VHRanger 4y ago
A client of yours migrated TO Oracle in 2023? What are they smoking
- BiteCode_dev 4y ago
  Not what. Whom with.
- wil421 4y ago
  I think you drastically underestimate Oracle and SAP in the enterprise world. There’s not many companies that can provide all the mundane business management tools for a huge variety of business like an ATM manufacturer, an oil and gas company, a massive hotel chain, or a financial services company. The tech is not sexy by any means but it can run businesses from top to bottom.

lynx23 4y ago

"Klicken sie hier um mehr über den HP TouchPoint Manger zu erfahren." Never ever will I personally buy a HP product again.

Woodi 4y ago

Here in small bakery office we was happy with simple HP 1018/1020/1022 and didn't wanted anything more featureful. Or crapfull. But sometimes they stop printing - usually with new cups update. So after 20 years back and forth (with trips to Brother and Epson) we will switch to plain dumb Postscript printers (not as dumb as win printers) - just: lpr docname And it will not be HP.

zeruch 4y ago

My current printer is being quite resilient, but once it dies, my relationship with HP does also (which goes back decades...I already replaced my last scanner similarly last year) as there is nothing left in HP worth supporting.

counterpartyrsk 4y ago

I too am happy with my Brother

neilv 4y ago

If you have a modern HP printer that currently works fine, and you want to delay buying a different brand, you might want to: 1. be using open source drivers (e.g., one of the CUPS PCL drivers, preferably on Linux or BSD) on all possible clients; 2. isolate the printer from direct network access (e.g., don't connect printer's Ethernet or WiFi, and instead run CUPS on a RasPi, which talks to the printer only via USB); and 3. consider limiting which devices can access your print server (i.e., via routing VLANs and/or authentication/authorization). This isn't perfect: * there are still ways that the printer can get firmware changes against your wishes; * still ways that it can leak information to HP; * still ways it's vulnerable to attacks by others; and * might be awkward to explain when a visitor to your home/office needs to print something. But I decided the headache of isolating the HP printer a bit (especially from HP), was less than the likely headache of trusting HP more. (Which is kinda sad, since the company previously known as HP was great.)

ornornor 4y ago
With the right firewall rules it doesn’t have to be a headache. You can have the printer usable from local networks only and not get internet at all. What does it need it for anyway?
- thombat 4y ago
  Try blocking it and see. My last HP inkjet would refuse to print off it hadn't phoned home for permission within some timeframe.
  - ornornor 4y ago
    I should add I'm talking about workgroup/enterprise class laser printers.
indrora 4y ago
Newer HP printers are also beginning to simply refuse to work without first being connected to wifi, even if there's a USB connection. I've seen it happen to two friends of mine. Outright refuses to not connect to a wifi network, uses its own DNS and all. CUPS PCL drivers for these devices are nonexistent. You're at this point forced to use HP's windows software which *emulates a Parallel port* in at least one case.

mettamage 4y ago

I’m fed up with hp too and know nothing about printers m. I read a lot about brother and epson. Is that what you would recommend? I need to print 50 pages per year. I feel really clueless

naeq 4y ago
I'm past Canon printer user, when I bought Brother I was struck, that printing can be so effortless.
deely3 4y ago
I bought inkjet Canon Pixma with refilling tanks and Im pretty happy with it. I print colorful A4 every day, sometime bw pages, recently printed two b/w books and one colorful. I use it for two years and so far I spent like $8-12 on ink refills.
bombcar 4y ago
I have a brother b/w laser - if I need color I can print at Kinkos or Walmart.

reflexe 4y ago

I used to work in the ink cartridge industry. This is not new. HP has been actively blocking non-HP cartridges for at least 10y. The issue is that there is a cat and mouse game between an handful HP "alternative cartridges" manufacturers and HP. HP is actively trying to detect and block non-HP cartridges while the manufacturers find a way to bypass it. What probably has happened here is that HP had pushed a SW upgrade that detects non-HP cartridges a bit better. The manufacturers probably already found a way to bypass it and new cartridges will work on this firmware.

usrusr 4y ago
Reading the headline I was half jokingly wondering if they did those lockdown updates like a one-off project each time or if they already have a routine schedule, like a key change mid-March every second year.

jp0d 4y ago

Has anyone used Kyocera or Lexmark laser printers? I was considering buying a laser printer and HP was on the bottom of my list to consider. Thanks to their action I can exclude that option.

Foobar8568 4y ago
I have a Kyocera P5021cdn, I can't complain but I am not a power user, it has been there for a bit over than one year, I wanted a "cheap"/network printer with a perceive good quality.
- jp0d 4y ago
  Thanks mate. I'm in Australia and have seen these products online. Most of of them have good reviews. Could I bother you with a few more questions? 1. Have you replaced the toner yet? Does it accept non-brand toners (like the ones from InkStation?)? 2. Does the printer come with a full toner? As it with 100% capacity or does it only come with 20 to 30% like some of the other brands? 3. Being a colour printer, does it work only with the black toner if don't need colour prints? Thank you!
  - Foobar8568 4y ago
    Hello, I haven't replaced the toner yet, Kyocera doesn't recommend to use 3rd party one. I am not sure if I will go with original one as the one from my printer was supposed to be rate for 1200 pages, but the black has 35% ink left after printing 220 "black" pages, and CMY@65% after 350 full color pages. Supposedly, it could print with only the black toner through a setting, but people online complained they couldn't. I think I will try the 3rd party toner, it's basically 80CHF per toner, 350CHF to replace the 4 of them, which would be over the cost of the printer itself, but they are rated for 2200 pages vs 1200 for included one. Finally, I am a bit wary on the long term support from the manufacturer, my printer is not listed anymore on their website, nor their official compatible toner.
    - jp0d 4y ago

ornornor 4y ago

Fwiw I bought a used HP M405dne (workgroup class) for a pitance used. I stuck a GL iNet thing on the Ethernet port to get wifi on it. It has an option to enable firmware downgrades and happily takes third party toner. I pay something like 25$ every 3–4 years. Maybe this is only happening to home office type printers and not to enterprise?

voytec 4y ago

It's not their printers but their customers' printers.

haylem 4y ago

I'm honestly a bit confused by the comments. I've had and installed only 5 home printers over my entire life (excluding professional printers at works) One was an already refurbished dinosaur from Xerox. 1 was a canon (would have to look for the model). The other 3 are HP LaserJet 100 Color MFP M175nw. All 5 have lasted over 10 years, the MFPs being the youngest at 12 years. That Xerox one was still going with after 20, it was just slow. And 1 of the HPs may be replaced for that reason, as apparently waiting 20s for a page is now too long for my family members, which I can't fathom for a single page of paper once in a while. Not a single technical issue with any of these. Not a huge test sample, but that makes me wonder: 1/ What do you people do with their printers? During the most active period, I printed about 2000 pages / year, which was already too much, and was mostly because of the kids when they were younger and when someone I knew had to deal with a lot of paperwork with an administration, and maybe one year when finishing my studies where I printed a crap load of reports. 2/ What's the failure rate on these things?? 3/ When did we decide that "over a decade" is an achievement to be noteworthy for any piece of equipment worth a decent amount of money? EDIT: My only gripe was the disappearance of ChromePrint. That bugged me quite a bit. Unrelated to the printers, though. Those MFPs work fine with HP Print, default print drivers, CUPS, etc... on Windows/Mac/Linux/Android/iOS.

bombcar 4y ago
For the 20s wait - try moving the printer 20s away from everyone. I put one in the far corner of the living room and by the time you walk to it it’s already done printing.
- neogodless 4y ago
  Yup - printer is in my office. I don't really use it, but my spouse does. But by the time they've walked up the stairs it's usually done, so the tardiness isn't a concern.
- haylem 4y ago
  It's already as far away as I possibly can. I'm afraid you overestimate the size of my housing. It's a good tip, though. But with mobile phones now, people tend to start printing already on their way to the room and then stare at the printer and wonder if it's OFF, starting up, pending, or if for some reason it decided whatever PDF they were printing was a bit too annoying to print (I do have occasional buffering issues with some of these printers, as I suspect their available memory/disk storage isn't great).

mnot 4y ago

Not in Australia, they won’t.

acd 4y ago

How does this work with anti competition? The Sherman Antitrust Act would prohibit printer manufacturers from engaging in anti-competitive practices such as locking out third-party printer cartridges. Under the law, monopolistic or anti-competitive practices are illegal and may be subject to government enforcement. To quote the sherman act "Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal" (Shermanj Antitrust Act, 15 U.S.C.A. § 1). Sherman anti trust act: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/antitrust-laws https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...

revlolz 4y ago
Captured FTC regulators likely won't do anything.

noja 4y ago

This sounds illegal. They are changing the product you bought to make it do less.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

throwawaylinux 4y ago

I had a trusty Bother MFC for years. It recently broke and I was looking around for another one when I realized that I might print a handful of things a year, so I used a printing service. Pretty painless experience and very wide range of options for quality and size if I ever needed that would be totally out of reach of even a very expensive home printer setup. Per-page for basic black text is a lot more than you could do with a laser printer but even a very cheap printer costs more than the combined cost of what I'm likely to ever print again. If my prediction is wrong and I find myself printing vast amounts of things I can buy a printer and eat loss of a few bucks. Feels good to have one less "thing" too.

bombcar 4y ago
And in an emergency many libraries have a simple printer available - email the PDF to yourself and run over to print. I already just use Walmart or similar for all my color needs.

dghughes 4y ago

I have an HP colour laser printer MFP just small home one. HP changed something a few years ago forcing people to log in to use their printer. I can't recall what happened but I was able to find a workaround or HP changed or cancelled that demand. I think the problem as stated in comments is money obviously. But it's the loss of the home market. The "desktop publishing" craze is gone and now it's older people who have printers. That's a big loss of revenue. Printers at home seem to be alien to anyone under the age of 40.

funcDropShadow 4y ago

Shouldn't the title corrected to say "HP have downgraded their printers to ban `non-HP` cartridges"?

laurencerowe 4y ago

This is terrible but next time I buy a printer it’ll probably just be the cheapest laser again since I barely get through a couple of reams of paper a decade. I currently have a cheap Dell I bought for $80 years ago. I was able to put in a new off brand toner cartridge recently but the driver only barely works on a modern Mac and I expect it will stop working completely in a major version or two.

bombcar 4y ago
Dell had some nice printers even if they were manufactured by someone else. I was sad to see them discontinue. You may be able to use a generic driver that comes with MacOS for your Dell.

hgsgm 4y ago

Stop using inkjets. Stop using inkjets.

1970-01-01 4y ago

It's been 50+ years since Stallman's printer hack. Where is the open source printer?

egberts1 4y ago

Take a peek at the expansive 120+ executive staff of Hewlett Packard IPG. Somebody needs more consumer money to pay for all that salary (cows). So, of course, they would need to milk that skinny cow even harder while making it look prettier with a lipstick. Even has a leash (software) that is too long and cumbersome to manage. Never mind how anemic these "cows" look, they're light and still functional even when infested with bloated features that often contract virus and bacteria. They'll keep on flogging these "cows" until it looks like a "horse", but just plain non-functional, stomach-bloated, back-arched, and ... dead. These exec team probably knows no soul worth saving and should not be considered an asset for your budding garage company, lest they become available on labor market. I am an old foggity whose dreams comprise of hardy folks that started these businesses out of their own home garage and a pair of ungrounded outlets. To my garage-aspired brothers, stick with a Brothers and you can do no wrong as I've slowly replaced all my HPs with Brothers over last 2 decades. - former faithful but disillusioned 48-year user of Hewlett Packard printers, former then roommate of former Epson device driver developer, and a device driver maintainer of the wonderful Xerox 1200 "laser" since 1987. https://www.hp.com/us-en/hp-information/executive-team/team.html https://www.hp.com/us-en/hp-information/executive-team/team....

Bhilai 4y ago

So I needed a new printer last year and went to the local Best Buy and picked up a reasonably priced HP printer. I got HP cartridges from Amazon. When I tried to install the cartridges, the printer kept saying they were not genuine or there was some other problem. I thought maybe Amazon seller duped me into buying counterfeits so I went to the Best Buy store where I bought the printer from and bought the 'original' HP cartridges they sell. But the printer would not accept even those so I called Best Buy geek squad folks and they asked me to bring the printer in. Best Buy folks tried several different HP original cartridges and one of them finally worked, no one knows why. Best Buy folks were apologetic and gave me a full refund on the printer and the cartridges and I swore never to buy HP printers again. Pretty happy with my Canon printer.

bigger_inside 4y ago

This is why I block all updates I can block. The security narrative is the piggy on which the control fantasies ride.

tracker1 4y ago

This behavior is just plain bad. While I have used HP Laser printers for decades now (current is about 8-9yo color) and tended to stick with HP high capacity toner, I don't like locking these things down any more than they already are. That said, I've only had to swap toner about once every 5 years or so with how little I actually print. Brother is probably where I'll go for my next device.

taylodl 4y ago

Would this be covered by proposed right-to-repair laws? Imagine if auto manufacturers said you can only use their parts and if you didn't your car would refuse to run?

aetherspawn 4y ago

I keep getting told the #1 reason that Fuji Xerox printers die is the non genuine toners. If that’s the case, is it evil to restrict cartridges to protect the image of your brand? If I was manufacturing enterprise printers, I would probably say no. With manufacturers taking the absolute cheapest and minimum effort possible to manufacture things, and yet being nearly indistinguishable from the real deal online (think: all the dodgy portable hard drives on Amazon that are either just interfaces to SD cards or just fake), can you blame them?

l8rlump 4y ago

Not only this, but our HP Pagewide inkjet machine will even refuse to use genuine ink if it’s “out of date”. I.e, its manufacture date was more than a couple of years ago. Also consider that the ink can sit on the shelf at the store or Managed Service Provider for this entire time and therefore go into landfill without ever being used in a machine.