Brother denies using firmware updates to brick printers with third-party ink
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Didn't read the article, eh? If you had it explained that Rossman based his video entirely on anonymous Internet user claims. (The main one being 2 - 3 years old.) He provided no evidence to back them up.
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Why are there an increasing number of devices these days that don't even work properly if they don't have Internet access?
I assigned a fixed address to our color laser printer working since 2006 and then told the router not to ever route any Internet information to that address. Computers on the local network don't need the router to be even turned on, because they are programmed to know where that printer can be reached on the local network.
I assigned a fixed address to our color laser printer working since 2006 and then told the router not to ever route any Internet information to that address. Computers on the local network don't need the router to be even turned on, because they are programmed to know where that printer can be reached on the local network.
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No. Tech journalism is just taking two random posts from Twitter or reddit and using that as verified sources.
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All of these corporations see other corporations enshittifying their products for fun and profit, and I guess Brother couldn't resist. All the cool companies are trying to ream their customers and squeeze them for as much money as they can before inducing a siezure. I got that last part from Ready Player 1.
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Literally there’s no proof beyond random old posts and Rossman posting nonsense videos (he’s been doing that for a long while.)
There are tons of people saying they have the least firmware and no issues with third party toner.
Personally I have a color laser and the third party is basically barely cheaper and just uses recycled Brother carts.
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"it’s impossible to confirm the accuracy of the reports and whether or not user error or the selected cartridges are factors."
You could, you know, try actually updating your printer and find out. That doesn't sound impossible to verify, like at all.
You could, you know, try actually updating your printer and find out. That doesn't sound impossible to verify, like at all.
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Brother's new medium-term business strategy (from their new CEO) states pretty clearly they intend to exploit their home printer users for more profit.
PDF here
Page 5, next to Printers & Solutions: "maximize businesses with continuous ties to customers to enhance customer LTV"
That's business speak for making their locked in customers pay the company more money for consumables. Forcing customers to buy their consumables seems like the only way they could even try to meet that goal.
Otherwise, Brother's statements are using some extremely specific lawyer-written language that should not be trusted. Their statement may be written with the intention to lead people to infer they are denying the claims, but they're not actually denying the claims. Nobody's saying Brother is literally bricking the printers, they're saying the firmware update deliberately degrades print quality over time on 3rd party cartridges, which printed perfectly before the update. Brother never actually denied that they've started doing that. They just said they're not directly bricking printers and locking out features.
The author says they have a brother printer. Go try it. If you believe them, then what are you afraid of?
PDF here
Page 5, next to Printers & Solutions: "maximize businesses with continuous ties to customers to enhance customer LTV"
That's business speak for making their locked in customers pay the company more money for consumables. Forcing customers to buy their consumables seems like the only way they could even try to meet that goal.
Otherwise, Brother's statements are using some extremely specific lawyer-written language that should not be trusted. Their statement may be written with the intention to lead people to infer they are denying the claims, but they're not actually denying the claims. Nobody's saying Brother is literally bricking the printers, they're saying the firmware update deliberately degrades print quality over time on 3rd party cartridges, which printed perfectly before the update. Brother never actually denied that they've started doing that. They just said they're not directly bricking printers and locking out features.
The author says they have a brother printer. Go try it. If you believe them, then what are you afraid of?
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It is not expensive toner I am tick off by. But more extremely cheap printers. I guess it has changed a bit the last decade but earlier there were always campaigns for cheap laser printers. Often down to $40, for a simple Brothers laser printer, including toner, which often was cheaper than a new toner cassette.
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Agreed. Let's just say I know a lot about Apple repairs. A lot of what Louis says is false. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to hate on Apple about their repairs and so on, but he often goes on a huge long tangent/rant which is completely misguided. For example, Apple actually do board level repairs, but not in retail stores by low paid minions. They swap the board out and provide warranty on the repair and get the customer up and running again quickly. Then the old board is sent away and properly repaired and tested extensively before being available for future repairs if it's good enough. This is a choice Apple makes, which results in a faster and more reliable repair for the customer. Of course there are down sides to this method, but Louis doesn't discuss this, it's all just "Apple bad, Apple terrible, deliberately does bad things to customers" etc - it's a lot more nuanced than that.
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I don't get who in 2025 is still using ink cartridges. Just get a laser printer if you really need to print in 2025 - it's better for both high volume priting but also NOT printing for 6 months and resuming - there's no ink to dry out
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What you appear to not get is that ink tank printers happened. The cost for ink is orders of magnitude lower than toner (for sub €1000 devices). If you print once a week or leave the device in standby so it can auto-clean, the only disadvantage is a higher initial cost which will be recouped after the laser has to replace the toner once with a "genuine" replacement part.
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Good to hear!
I had a nightmare with an $800 Epson photoprinter 15 years ago. A full set of ink cartridges cost $250. Since I only used for 10-20 prints once every half year or so, the ink dried out between times. Of course you could not print anything if a single cartridge was not working, even if printing black and white. After about three years it got a mechanically problem that proved to be too expensive to fix. So I had got about 60 A3 prints (including test prints) for $2000.
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Ex Brother employee here. I'd be very surprised if this were true, this kind anti-consumer action is really not part of the company culture (when I was there at least). I used to work in the service dept and remote diag was always a pain so use of Brother ink for this would be SOP.
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This is getting kind of wild.
The Verge, which has long recommended Brother laser printers, is now questioning that recommendation: https://www.theverge.com/news/624174/et-tu-brother
And PetaPixel is declaring the company "anti-consumer" and is now endorsing Epson printers: https://petapixel.com/2025/03/05/stop-battling-anti-consumer-printers-and-just-buy-an-epson-ecotank/
All because of some old Reddit posts and a random video? Do we have any actual evidence yet?
My Brother printer has always worked fine, even with "compatible" toner.
The company's service has been great too. I bought my printer as a refurb, and it had an intermittent "ticking" noise. I sent an email asking if this was normal, and instead of fobbing me off, they asked me to take it in to a nearby service centre, who said it was probably fine, but they would investigate "to be on the safe side". It came back sans-ticking, and has been flawless since.
The Verge, which has long recommended Brother laser printers, is now questioning that recommendation: https://www.theverge.com/news/624174/et-tu-brother
And PetaPixel is declaring the company "anti-consumer" and is now endorsing Epson printers: https://petapixel.com/2025/03/05/stop-battling-anti-consumer-printers-and-just-buy-an-epson-ecotank/
All because of some old Reddit posts and a random video? Do we have any actual evidence yet?
My Brother printer has always worked fine, even with "compatible" toner.
The company's service has been great too. I bought my printer as a refurb, and it had an intermittent "ticking" noise. I sent an email asking if this was normal, and instead of fobbing me off, they asked me to take it in to a nearby service centre, who said it was probably fine, but they would investigate "to be on the safe side". It came back sans-ticking, and has been flawless since.
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Have 2 brothers DCP 1612 (i think), need to make sure the stupid win10 doesn't update the firmware automatically, that POS of an Os already bricked an All In One computer thanks to an unrequested bios update.
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Well? Are they lying? Aren't they? It occurs to me that investigative journalism without the investigation is just gossip. So this is effectively a gossip column.
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Imagine if Weber Grills could make it so that you couldn’t control the temperature of your grill if you didn’t use official Weber Grill grates.
Weber would claim that “you can still use your grill with 3rd party grates”, though practically it’s going to be difficult to cook well without controlling the temperature.
That is what Rossman is saying Brother did, and Brother isn’t denying this.
They are explicitly using verbiage to avoid saying that they did this.
Weber would claim that “you can still use your grill with 3rd party grates”, though practically it’s going to be difficult to cook well without controlling the temperature.
That is what Rossman is saying Brother did, and Brother isn’t denying this.
They are explicitly using verbiage to avoid saying that they did this.
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As an interesting side note, some 30 years ago, I worked with several former Smith-Corona employees who had lost their jobs after Brother ate Smith-Corona's lunch in the typewriter market. Smith-Corona had cut their workforce as they couldn't compete with Brother's overseas manufacturing. Our company picked up 3 former Smith-Corona employees.
It's a crazy market to be in. Most people are no longer printing much, but, at the moment, there is still a need for hard copies of documents so the printer market can't just go away. I don't see it growing much and therefore don't expect investors to buy into that market.
It's a crazy market to be in. Most people are no longer printing much, but, at the moment, there is still a need for hard copies of documents so the printer market can't just go away. I don't see it growing much and therefore don't expect investors to buy into that market.
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Two thoughts come up, assuming Brother is telling the truth:
(1) A wave of particularly bad quality out of 3rd party vendors;
(2) Firmware update causes higher tolerances.
Experiment: try the highest quality 3rd party stuff you can find. Maybe try a brother branded one first to reset, then the 3rd party one.
Frankly Brother here can sort this out quickly by keeping the old firmware available, but then they'd have to provide some way to downgrade it - perhaps over USB?
(1) A wave of particularly bad quality out of 3rd party vendors;
(2) Firmware update causes higher tolerances.
Experiment: try the highest quality 3rd party stuff you can find. Maybe try a brother branded one first to reset, then the 3rd party one.
Frankly Brother here can sort this out quickly by keeping the old firmware available, but then they'd have to provide some way to downgrade it - perhaps over USB?
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There don’t seem to be a lot of us, so “hello!” fellow Xerox (and more specifically 6515) owner!
Bought mine in late 2019 to finally retire my HP LaserJet 5 which I’d pulled out of a dumpster 12 years prior.
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More likely it's open within his network, but not exposed to the internet (blocked at the router/firewall). Mine is setup the same way, it's connected to the Wi-Fi and anyone connected to the Wi-Fi can see and print with it.
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They said they have some ports open, which implies a firewall. There are a few options for why a firewall would be between the printer and the users of the printer, but "opening ports" to a home user pretty much universally means port forwarding from the outside internet. If they put the printer on a separate subnet, good call, but generally you'd just allow your trusted subnet to access the printer and block the printer/untrusted subnet from accessing anything at all.
Devices talking to each other "on your wifi" don't hit your router and don't run into your firewall. There are no "ports to open" because it's all layer 2 until it hits the printer itself.
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rocketgeekinfl
Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
I know Epson has done this. I have had several third party ink cartridges no longer recognized after a firmware update. What is weird is it will only brick one or two of them.
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As a Brother customer the last 2+ years, after having HP brick an otherwise functional printer through an irreversible "update", I cannot speak highly enough of the company and their product. Our other office recently purchased a Brother based on my recommendation.
Brother is one of the few companies that I highly praise for their approach and rock-solid equipment. We are in a dirty environment and this thing WORKS. When I needed to do some maintenance it was simple to follow online directions and replace the necessary items.
Yeah, I'm not addressing the third-party issue because I only purchase genuine as I can't diddle around with any issues. Just a very happy customer.
Brother is one of the few companies that I highly praise for their approach and rock-solid equipment. We are in a dirty environment and this thing WORKS. When I needed to do some maintenance it was simple to follow online directions and replace the necessary items.
Yeah, I'm not addressing the third-party issue because I only purchase genuine as I can't diddle around with any issues. Just a very happy customer.
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Well...if you didn't do it on purpose fix it. Prove the naysayers wrong you scamming printer-making piece of scum.
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"For what it’s worth, an Ars staffer has been successfully using their Brother HL-2270DW laser printer with v4ink-brand toner, but their device doesn't receive automatic updates."
I'm rocking a HL-2240 that I have had for 10+ years. Using JARBO brand ink and no problems here either.
I sure hope Brother is telling the truth, because I've gotten a lot of my friends & family to move to Brother laser printers over the years and set them up with the 3rd party ink!
I'm rocking a HL-2240 that I have had for 10+ years. Using JARBO brand ink and no problems here either.
I sure hope Brother is telling the truth, because I've gotten a lot of my friends & family to move to Brother laser printers over the years and set them up with the 3rd party ink!
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I give it some credence. Only because other printer manufacturers have been caught engaging in anti consumer behavior.
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Why in the 7 hells would anyone allow their printer to connect to the outside internet? Intranet, sure. But internet?
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The only thing more entertaining than all the people here who don't own a brother printer trying to defend them is the people here downvoting all the folks who DO have brother printers pointing out that they are also seeing the printers locking out third party ink. Can't tell if bots or if the Ars community has just gone this far downhill...
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I already posted here and got downvoted to oblivion. I took the microchip off of a printer cartridge that had been functioning just fine for years (that was swapped out a couple months ago because my dad never throws anything away) and swapped it onto an ink cartridge that "just went bad" out of nowhere just to verify the chip on the "new" ink cartridge hadn't just randomly gone bad after a couple weeks of use. The "good" microchip was also locked out by the printer. Oddly, none of the folks downvoting have an explanation for how that one works out, because without debug info from what the printer is doing, the only rational explanation is a firmware lockout.
Also really weird everyone is just starting to have this probelm around the same time.
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Absolutely. If one (HP) has been caught pulling things like this, then others likely are also doing it.
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We use 3rd party ink for our Brother office printers and have been for 5 years. No issue.
We have several models, colour and non colour and no issues. The printers are online as well due to accessibility and automation needs. They range from 4 years old to a few months old.
We use Brother printers only due to hassles we have had with less reputable companies.
And the minute the printers stop I get the calls.
We have several models, colour and non colour and no issues. The printers are online as well due to accessibility and automation needs. They range from 4 years old to a few months old.
We use Brother printers only due to hassles we have had with less reputable companies.
And the minute the printers stop I get the calls.
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It was interesting to read up-thread about toner additives that are (very likely) not in the 3rd party cartridges I use, that are intended extend the life of specific printer components.
The thing is, I already saved more on toner than the price of a brand-new replacement for my relatively-low-end several-years-old Brother laser printer and the silly thing still prints just fine.
The thing is, I already saved more on toner than the price of a brand-new replacement for my relatively-low-end several-years-old Brother laser printer and the silly thing still prints just fine.
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I have an MFC-3770CDW and that I've only used genuine brother toners with that ran out of magenta last week. There was a way to reset the toner count and allow it to print even if it's "empty". It's pretty stupid when a printer won't print black only text when magenta is out. While the method is still there, and reports it reset the toner it didn't actually reset the toner. This is a method I've used multiple times in the past to squeak out the last bit of toner out or get past it preventing prints when I'm out of a colour not needed. I tried the method on the other colours as well but it wouldn't reset their counts either.
It does appear Brother has made some change in their firmware that makes it less consumer friendly or introduced a bug.
It does appear Brother has made some change in their firmware that makes it less consumer friendly or introduced a bug.
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I'm happy with my 2370DW that I've had for several years. I have noticed inconsistent results with third party cartridges. They always work, but print quality is sometimes degraded. I have not experienced any inconsistency with genuine carts. The inconsistency leads me to believe the third party carts are lacking in quality, rather than it being caused by a nefarious enshittification plot. Since I use my printer for work, I stopped using third party carts. It's not worth the hassle. A ~$75 high yield cart lasts me at least a year--maybe two. I'd rather pay a little extra than play cartridge roulette.
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The actual toner is usually just polyester powder with colors added.
Source: once upon a time, we had an HP Color Laserjet 5. That thing was a tank. Not fast, but we finally retired it many years and hundreds of thousands of pages later after the rollers wore out. It was totally obsolete by then. Anyway. The toner came in plastic bottles that emptied into bins inside the printer. In typical old school HP fashion, the toner boxes included a list of ingredients: polyester.
Source: once upon a time, we had an HP Color Laserjet 5. That thing was a tank. Not fast, but we finally retired it many years and hundreds of thousands of pages later after the rollers wore out. It was totally obsolete by then. Anyway. The toner came in plastic bottles that emptied into bins inside the printer. In typical old school HP fashion, the toner boxes included a list of ingredients: polyester.
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