161–170 of 259 posts
If all you need is black and white printing, there is no need to be buying HP inkjet printers anymore. Get yourself a Mine has been going strong for like 10 years now.
The major office supply chains and UPS stores offer online print services, so for the occasional color print job I just send it to one of them and pick it up the next time I’m out for lunch.
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If you don't want to go the USB route, put the printer on its own separate VLAN and/or Wifi network and filter all outbound traffic from that network at the router unless (1) part of a connection initiated from the other side and (2) aimed at another local host. Filter traffic going the other way (opening those connection) to taste - perhaps allow access only to the IPP port and certainly don't allow any inbound traf…
Another problem is if the update is packaged in a print job, which seems to be an option according to comments here. In that case, the Internet connected computer may still be hijacked by the manufacturer to bork the printer against the customers will, by sending a malicious print job to the printer.
Why would your printer be set to allow print jobs from outside your network?
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Brother also has a handy iOS app for printing and scanning.
Are these shill accounts? I've seen raving template-looking comments for Brother in every printer thread for the past few weeks. Get yourself a Edit: Sorry if I'm jumping the gun. Maybe they really are just great?
I've gone through 3 (Epson) inkjets last decade (as I do need to print Photos - but only occasionally), and SO much consistent hassle with cleaning heads and refilling and bad prints. Meanwhile I have a Brother 2270DW for at least the last decade for regular printing and it just works. I've gone through the original small and one big toner in that period. Happy to discuss how to prove I'm not a shill :)
A VP at HP once told me they make 3/4 of their profits from selling inks (I am sure he exaggerated but still). You can buy original laserjet cartridges for $150 or third party cartridges for $40-60 (or $25 if you are happy with noname Chinese cartridges). So there is big money involved.
In Canada we have 123ink.ca. For my Brother printer a set of genuine high yield cartridges is $520. A completely generic set is $105. However, they also have their own (Moustache) branded set that's $130.
I suspect their branded version is just a different sticker on the generic, but I buy the branded version. If they're willing to stamp their name on it and stand behind it that's worth $25 (+24%) to me. A brand name isn't worth $415 (+495%) though.
These companies have ignored the risk of cheating their customers for a long time and now that customers are getting more informed the same companies think they should be able to force customers keep buying their garbage. No thanks. Their downfall should be swift and spectacular (in my dreams -lol).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Brother also has a handy iOS app for printing and scanning.
Are these shill accounts? I've seen raving template-looking comments for Brother in every printer thread for the past few weeks. Get yourself a Edit: Sorry if I'm jumping the gun. Maybe they really are just great?
I can only speak for myself, but as someone who needed a printer for the first time in a while due to the pandemic, I bought a used brother laser printer (HL-2170W) for $20 from someone local. It's not perfect, especially with network printing from a linux client over wifi, but I was able to get it all set up and refilled the toner with a very cheap generic from Amazon. It feels like a device I "own" rather than some black box I'm renting from HP.
I don't know where the excitement around buying the new ones comes from. When I looked it was hard to find them in stock and they didn't seem particularly inexpensive.
Are there any online resources on what is the most reliable and cheap printer to use long term? I'm thinking a BW or Color laser printer where the parts last a long time and accept cheap third party toner cartridges?
I just ordered an HP laser printer since Wirecutter recommended it. Not used it yet. On HN I see people recommending Brother all the time though, so now I hope my HP is still ok :-)
I haven't tried non-first party toner; the B/W high-capacity HP toner cartridges for my current printer, for example, are ~$200 and last for ~10,000 pages, which works fine for me; my total cost of ownership ends up at $45/year or so, and there's zero hassle involved, which is worth a lot to me personally.
If all you need is black and white printing, there is no need to be buying HP inkjet printers anymore. Get yourself a Mine has been going strong for like 10 years now.
I made the mistake of buying an HP printer years ago. But I found a 'neat trick'. You can subscribe to the free Instant Ink program using a test credit card, i.e. a number from https://developer.paypal.com/docs/payflow/payflow-pro/payflo... . And ~2 days later you have ink sent to your door. Fuck you HP.
If all you need is black and white printing, there is no need to be buying HP inkjet printers anymore. Get yourself a Mine has been going strong for like 10 years now.
Only problem with Brother on Linux seems that they do bot distribute drivers in source code but a binary-only Debian package. So, while they seem to have a good reputation for Linux support, there is still lots of room for improvement. Ah, and also on the newwer Brother printers one has to do a complicated configuration menu dance to get rid of "Toner cartridge empty" warnings, in order to do a "Toner Reset", which l…
To be honest, I have no idea how. It just shows up as a network printer.