HP Blocks Third-Party Ink with Printer Firmware Update

[Tsing]

HP seems to be upset about people using its printers with cheaper, non-official ink. As highlighted by an enormous number of complaints on the "*******design" subreddit, HP has sent out a new firmware update that prevents third-party inks from being used with its printers, an indication that owners have little option but to use HP's own ink cartridges going forward. According to an HP support article, this is a security feature that was partially implemented to protect customers, although it seems to have done much more than that, having prompted outrage among what appear to be all users, some of whom insist that this isn't even legal.

See full article...

 

[MadMummy76]

Of course it is illegal, it is akin to Tesla updating your car so it can only be charged at Tesla superchargers, not at home or other independent chargers.

Of course it is always "for your security" that excuse is as meaningless by now as yatzi.

 

[Zarathustra]

Of course it is illegal, it is akin to Tesla updating your car so it can only be charged at Tesla superchargers, not at home or other independent chargers.

Of course it is always "for your security" that excuse is as meaningless by now as yatzi.

I don't know man.

Everyone knows it is part of the deal. They sell you a printer for far below what it actually costs to make it, with the expectation that they will make it back in ink.

If you don't like that model, you'd probably have to pay $500 for printers, not $39.99

 

[Brian_B]

I don't know man.

Everyone knows it is part of the deal. They sell you a printer for far below what it actually costs to make it, with the expectation that they will make it back in ink.

If you don't like that model, you'd probably have to pay $500 for printers, not $39.99

Hmm. You are right, it's unspoken but expected.

But... I think the bigger question is, if it's unspoken and not explicitly spelled out on the front of the box when you buy it, is it right?

This goes back to things like Right to Repair - if you can only buy a needed thing from one vendor, that gives that vendor a monopoly over the service or part. You can always buy another brand, so it's not the same thing as anti-trust... but the main crux is were you aware - did the manufacturer make it reasonably known to the consumer, that this was going to be the case before the purchase was made - because things like this would certainly affect a consumer's decision in the selection process.

 

[Grimlakin]

What happens if you don't apply the firmware is the bigger question.

 

[Zarathustra]

What happens if you don't apply the firmware is the bigger question.

It will probably continue to work just like before.

Make sure you don't run HP software on your mahcine though as it may force the flash. Just run basic drivers. If it is network enabled, firewall it off from accessing the WAN.

 

[MadMummy76]

I don't know man.

Everyone knows it is part of the deal. They sell you a printer for far below what it actually costs to make it, with the expectation that they will make it back in ink.

They sell you a printer bellow cost expecting to recoup it on supplements, that's their gambit. That doesn't mean they can dictate how you use the printer that you own If it was not specifically declared at the time of purchase that you can only use ink supplied by them. They can't add that rule later.

If you don't like that model, you'd probably have to pay $500 for printers, not $39.99

If they don't want to gamble on it, they should've made it explicitly clear that the printer costs $100 because you can only use their overpriced cartridge in it.

Hmm. You are right, it's unspoken but expected.

If it's unwritten they can't enforce it on the consumer.

But... I think the bigger question is, if it's unspoken and not explicitly spelled out on the front of the box when you buy it, is it right?

It's begging for a class action.

This goes back to things like Right to Repair - if you can only buy a needed thing from one vendor, that gives that vendor a monopoly over the service or part. You can always buy another brand, so it's not the same thing as anti-trust... but the main crux is were you aware - did the manufacturer make it reasonably known to the consumer, that this was going to be the case before the purchase was made - because things like this would certainly affect a consumer's decision in the selection process.

Implied agreement might fly between two private individuals exchanging favors. Definitely not between a multi billion dollar company and a consumer, it needs to be clearly indicated preferably on the packaging, at least in fine print.

 

[Uvilla]

Epson ecotank.
Epson are amazing printers (I don't have ecotank printer, but use generic refillable cartriges). I have shoved all kinds of ink on my epson printers ( proper cleaning in between, if changing brand).
From whatever generic aliexpress crap, to high quality dye, and pigment based, and sublimation.
Epson. Period. HP never again.
My oldest epson is 10years now, what a printer. Works perfectly, just switched from generic garbage ink (im takling 18$ for like a set of 3x each color, and 5x black or some absurd thing like this, it was soooo cheap) to high quality pigment ink, it prints fantastic, always did, except cheap ink means faded color, which overall I don't care, though now with high quality ink, color are awesome.
Epson. Epson and only epson.

 

[MadMummy76]

I don't know about Epson, the last one I had was a RX-80 9-pin dot matrix printer. Basically could use any ink, just pour it into the tank in the ribbon spool.

The next step was a HP Deskjet 670c, which I think was a fraud. It printed the official test images in great quality, but try to print anything else and it came out as a dithered low resolution mess. Also one of the loudest printers I've seen and that's saying something coming from a dot matrix.

Then I went to a Canon IP4200, that I only retired last year. I used a Canon MX310 multi function in parallel, that I'm still using today 17 years and counting.

 

[DrezKill]

...HP has sent out a new firmware update that prevents third-party inks from being used with its printers...

Maaaaaan, printer manufacturers are still pulling this bullsh1t?!

 

[Zarathustra]

Epson ecotank.
Epson are amazing printers (I don't have ecotank printer, but use generic refillable cartriges). I have shoved all kinds of ink on my epson printers ( proper cleaning in between, if changing brand).
From whatever generic aliexpress crap, to high quality dye, and pigment based, and sublimation.
Epson. Period. HP never again.
My oldest epson is 10years now, what a printer. Works perfectly, just switched from generic garbage ink (im takling 18$ for like a set of 3x each color, and 5x black or some absurd thing like this, it was soooo cheap) to high quality pigment ink, it prints fantastic, always did, except cheap ink means faded color, which overall I don't care, though now with high quality ink, color are awesome.
Epson. Epson and only epson.

I guess my take would be, never buy an ink printer under any circumstance (unless you need a large format plotter).

If you still need a printer in 2023 (and lets face it, most of us don't) you should be buying laser. Yes, it costs a little bit more upfront, and the toner cartridges will cost a bit more when they need replacing, but the printer cost is a one time thing, and the toners only need to be replaced very rarely in a home or home office setting due to them being able to handle a few thousand pages.

The beautiful thing is if you print at lot, a laser is going to wind up being cheaper due to cost per page being lower. If you print infrequently a laser is also going to wind up being cheaper, because you will never have an inky drying or clog problem due to sitting unused.

I have two networked HP lasers at home:

One I saved from the trash at an old job in 2014. It is a black and white HP LaserJet P2055dn. The printer was free. I did need to buy a new toner for it though, but at the rate we are printing on it, that toner is going to last a really long time. Since 2014 we have printed maybe ~1000 pages on this thing. It supports duplex printing too, which is nice as it saves paper.

This thing is a bloody tank. It will outlive all of us. This was one of the last old school models from back when they still made printers well.

(probably not the most energy efficient by modern standards though)


The printer in my office is a color HP Laser Jet Pro MFP M277c6, (you know, printer/scanner/fax thingie) which has been a godsend during the work from home era. I've never used the Fax feature (because it isn't the 90's anymore) but I have relied on the printer and scanner functions on it a lot since the pandemic started. I got it cheap on sale at MicroCenter as a closeout item years ago. Again, toner was expensive when I had to replace the trial toners it came with, but once replaced they last for bloody ever. It also supports duplex printing.

I have it set up to scan directly over the network to a folder on my NAS, which works really well.

My only gripe is that the ADF does not support two sided scanning, which is a bummer. The HP scanning software has a way of doing it for you, but you have to scan all the pages, flip them, scan all the pages again, and then it will automatically sort everything, but this only works if you do it using the desktop software, not directly from the little touch screen, which is how I usually scan things.

That is my only gripe with an otherwise excellent printer. The sad part is that prior to this printer I had an older LaserJet MFP and it DID scan both sides, so I was really surprised when I got this one and it didn't. I just kind of assumed that it would be the same as prior models.

This model came out in 2015. The previous one was a ~2010 or so model I think, so that must have been when HP started cost saving themselves to crap.

The black and white P2055dn sits on our main floor for occasional printing needs. The color MFP sits downstairs in my home office and gets heavier use for work. Mostly for printing, signing and scanning things, as we went into the pandemic without a validated esignature solution at work.

I should say that both of these printers have their latest firmware, and neither seem to restrict toners to HP only, but I still do buy HP toners, as I tried the cheaper 3rd party and remanufactured ones, and the results just aren't the same.

 

[Peter_Brosdahl]

I guess my take would be, never buy an ink printer under any circumstance (unless you need a large format plotter).

If you still need a printer in 2023 (and lets face it, most of us don't) you should be buying laser. Yes, it costs a little bit more upfront, and the toner cartridges will cost a bit more when they need replacing, but the printer cost is a one time thing, and the toners only need to be replaced very rarely in a home or home office setting due to them being able to handle a few thousand pages.

The beautiful thing is if you print at lot, a laser is going to wind up being cheaper due to cost per page being lower. If you print infrequently a laser is also going to wind up being cheaper, because you will never have an inky drying or clog problem due to sitting unused.

I have two networked HP lasers at home:

One I saved from the trash at an old job in 2014. It is a black and white HP LaserJet P2055dn. The printer was free. I did need to buy a new toner for it though, but at the rate we are printing on it, that toner is going to last a really long time. Since 2014 we have printed maybe ~1000 pages on this thing. It supports duplex printing too, which is nice as it saves paper.

This thing is a bloody tank. It will outlive all of us. This was one of the last old school models from back when they still made printers well.

(probably not the most energy efficient by modern standards though)


The printer in my office is a color HP Laser Jet Pro MFP M277c6, (you know, printer/scanner/fax thingie) which has been a godsend during the work from home era. I've never used the Fax feature (because it isn't the 90's anymore) but I have relied on the printer and scanner functions on it a lot since the pandemic started. I got it cheap on sale at MicroCenter as a closeout item years ago. Again, toner was expensive when I had to replace the trial toners it came with, but once replaced they last for bloody ever. It also supports duplex printing.

I have it set up to scan directly over the network to a folder on my NAS, which works really well.

My only gripe is that the ADF does not support two sided scanning, which is a bummer. The HP scanning software has a way of doing it for you, but you have to scan all the pages, flip them, scan all the pages again, and then it will automatically sort everything, but this only works if you do it using the desktop software, not directly from the little touch screen, which is how I usually scan things.

That is my only gripe with an otherwise excellent printer. The sad part is that prior to this printer I had an older LaserJet MFP and it DID scan both sides, so I was really surprised when I got this one and it didn't. I just kind of assumed that it would be the same as prior models.

This model came out in 2015. The previous one was a ~2010 or so model I think, so that must have been when HP started cost saving themselves to crap.

The black and white P2055dn sits on our main floor for occasional printing needs. The color MFP sits downstairs in my home office and gets heavier use for work. Mostly for printing, signing and scanning things, as we went into the pandemic without a validated esignature solution at work.

I should say that both of these printers have their latest firmware, and neither seem to restrict toners to HP only, but I still do buy HP toners, as I tried the cheaper 3rd party and remanufactured ones, and the results just aren't the same.

We've got a few of the P2055DN and 30 series as well. They are tanks. Been in operation for almost ten years now. I'm truly impressed by them. My only complaint relates to how an occasional MS update can screw up the drivers but I've gotten used to dealing with it. Easy enough to pull directly from HP when that happens.

 

[MadMummy76]

I guess my take would be, never buy an ink printer under any circumstance (unless you need a large format plotter).

Unless all you want to print is text, laser printers are bad mkay? You can't print high quality graphics or photos with them, and most home users want to do that, so a laser is a no-go. Even labels with some color graphics come out awful with them. I know because I owned a color laser printer.

 

[Grimlakin]

Unless all you want to print is text, laser printers are bad mkay? You can't print high quality graphics or photos with them, and most home users want to do that, so a laser is a no-go. Even labels with some color graphics come out awful with them. I know because I owned a color laser printer.

My dell 3100cn disagrees. At least for what I want out of it.

 

[Brian_B]

Epson. Period. HP never again.

I’m firmly in the no inkjet of any kind camp, Haven’t found a consumer laser that I would swear by yet.

I had a Samsung color laser previously - it printed fine but the toner carts were tiny and didn’t last long. I have an HP MFP now, still on the starter toner a bit more than a year later but it’s popping up low toner warnings now. I had a nice MFP before the Samsung but for the life of me can’t remember what - over about 8 years I put in one toner cart set and it printed great, but Win7 killed the driver.

 

[Grimlakin]

If you're printing photo's and such you need a printer specifically tasked/built to do that function. Literally in my mind.. almost everything else can be done with a laser at a lower cost with fewer headaches. (yea we know if you need to print architectural diagrams or posters that's well outside of this discussion.)

BUT...

By god I won't be buying another dell multifunction printer... I've had this 3100cn for nearly 20 years. (will be 20 years since release next year.) and I love it. I did try a newer dell multifunction. It was nice, could print from your phones, could scan documents, full duplex, color... the whole set. UNTIL the light bar had an error after 1 year. The light bar on the scanner was triggering an error. No reset no repair I could find. And the entire printer immediately became trash.

NEVER AGAIN for Dell since then. It's clear that their printers are now trash.

 

[Brian_B]

NEVER AGAIN for Dell since then. It's clear that their printers are now trash.

Hate to say it but I don't think it's just Dell. It's a race to the bottom, and the folks that made printers to last found out they only sell one of them and it was a bad business model.

 

[Zarathustra]

Unless all you want to print is text, laser printers are bad mkay? You can't print high quality graphics or photos with them, and most home users want to do that, so a laser is a no-go. Even labels with some color graphics come out awful with them. I know because I owned a color laser printer.

It is true that they aren't the best for photo printing, but they also aren't as terrible as many think.

And honestly, IMHO it is a fools errand to try to print photos at home. Just take them to a professional, or at least one of those printing booths at your local pharmacy. You'll be dealing with all the problems of ink printers, and still get worse results than you would on a professional photo printer.

As a print sample, I used a picture I took for my recent 4090 thread:



I printed it full page, and stuck it right back in the scanner and scanned it. Here is the result:



Now, here is where I was a little bit surprised, because in person, the print looks much better than it does once scanned. I wonder if the scanner just isn't very good for photo stuff

Here is a picture of the print with my phone



Surprisingly, this too does not look as good as the actual print in hand.

It's interesting how it looks different once a scan or image has been taken of it.

For whatever reason, the print - once scanned or a picture has been taken has much more visible grain and seeming smudging, than it does when I hold the sheet in my hand and look at it

My take is - however - that it is perfectly serviceable from a photo perspective. You just won't get the glossy photo paper result. But even those on an ink-jet are going to suck compared to the real deal from a proper photo printer.

 

[Zarathustra]

NEVER AGAIN for Dell since then. It's clear that their printers are now trash.

Do they even make their own printers, or are they just rebranded from an actual printer manufacturer?

 

[Brian_B]

For whatever reason, the print - once scanned or a picture has been taken has much more visible grain and seeming smudging, than it does when I hold the sheet in my hand and look at it

A lot of it depends on the paper you use as well. You can get glossy photo-quality paper - it still won't quite line up with what a professional print service can do, but it's a heck of a lot better than printing on cheap OfficeMax 20lb stock paper. We do that all the time for hand outs and presentations for clients, and they look sharp coming out of a color laser.

I'd also say - actual photographs don't look as sharp, but if you are printing color line art (like Powerpoint stuff), and especially if you stay away from gradients - that stuff looks fantastic on color laser. And it doesn't come out of the printer a soggy mess.