You didn't bought it you rented it!
2y 10mon ago by lemmy.world/u/Crispy_Mate in lemmyshitpost
I hate that everything now is a subscription service instead of buying it and do whatever you want.
Other than the recent nonsense, this is why I cancelled Netflix and went back to pirating. Content leaves unexpectedly? Not on my Nas.
I've been buying preowned DVDs off ebay every few weeks or so for the last year. I don't even bother looking to see if they are available to stream anymore.
Probably cheaper too
But then it's in DVD quality. Why not just pirate a full quality version?
This. My only media expense monthly is my VPN at $10. Everything is pirated.
Even that though - I just download only my favorites for the collection. Everything else is available on stand alone websites these days (multiple) so if you're paying for a streaming service or really even using bittorrent then you're living in the past as far as movies go.
What should I be using instead of (q)bittorrent?
QBitTorrent is fine. BitTorrent and its children are not.
I don't think I we've used any of those actually.
fmhy.net will tell you.
Blurays exist and they’re pretty cheap from thrift stores (often just $3)
Piracy is free though
Ya but Blu-ray is a PITA to rip sometimes.
DVD isn't very good quality. I don't really care and I have a tiny TV, and DVDs still don't look very good on it.
The video quality is shit and it's extremely obvious in my opinion. Even the sound is inferior to a good torrent with Dolby TrueHD/DTS HD sound.
Why isn't it fair? No reason you can't just torrent a 10GB Blu-Ray rip of the movie. It's free, easy and probably takes less time than going out and buying a DVD.
I would say that side-to-side the quality of Netflix-like streaming is A LOT better, at least when it comes to video. Audio is probably comparable since both DVD's and streaming services usually use Dolby Digital or Dolby Digital Plus.
What software would that happen to be, supposing it's not MakeMKV?
Thanks! I've read that VLC can do it before, but I'll look into giving it another shot sometime. The guides I found weren't exactly the best, but with the mentioned packages I should be able to better narrow the searches to better guides, I think.
I’m pretty sure handbrake can rip as well as re-encode.
I've taken to de-DRMing any e-books I bought from Amazon for that reason.
Also, the "You can only view this book on 3 devices" -- yeah .... fuck off.
Calibre + DeDRM plugin + KFX plugin. Perfectly legal too, as long as you aren't distributing them.
Btw, did you know of Weightless Books and Smashwords?
They may not have as many ebooks as Amazon, but they do offer DRM free ebooks, and may be worth keeping in mind to check before going straight to Amazon.
Thanks. I had a collection from several years ago of Amazon books, though these days it's my absolute last choice for anything.
This is the way.
Content leaves unexpectedly? Not on my Nas.
Except when I accidentally rm -rf the media folder but shhhhhhhh
Old school pirating or new school? Last time I remember pirates was like... Napster, Limewire, Kazaa... Then went to TPB before it got raided like 8 times... What's the current? Is it still torrenting with proxies?
I just got my automated pirating machine set up!
Here's the wiki for the *arr apps!
- Radarr for movies
- Sonarr for TV shows
- Prowlarr for index management
- Optional Doplarr Discord Bot for requests
Set up your profiles for Radarr/Sonarr to pick the quality of release you want (1080p, min/max file size, etc)
Feed Radarr/Sonarr your qbittorrent info, nzbget & Usenet info
They will automatically search the indexes (I use 1337x for torrents & nzbgeek for Usenet) for the files that fit your parameters, download it, and organize it.
All you have to do is point Plex at the output folders and BAM, automated pirating.
I even took it a step further and set up Doplarr - a Discord bot that handles requests. Now friends/family can ping the bot with their movie/show requests and it'll sync up to Radarr/Sonarr and add their requests!
Oh, the high seas are very, very busy these days. Still a bit difficult for the non technical user, but there is buried treasure out there.
Non technical users can just use Stremio and a debrid service. Couldn’t be simpler.
Torrents are still around, lots of sites out there for them.
Word on the street is that reddit's arr slash piracy has a pretty good guide to it in their wiki, including lists of generally trustworthy torrent sources. I of course don't torrent, because I'm terrified of legal consequences–I just browse shady but technically legal websites to stream my anime
I've been pirating since Napster and you're right, it's changed a lot. These days, I usually just stream from third party sites. Takes less room on your PC and is faster than downloading a torrent. Dopebox is where it's at for most stuff. 9anime if you like anime, it's better than the paid alternatives like Crunchy roll or Funamation.
If you want to stick to torrents I've found 1337x to be the best since TPB died.
New skool is to use automation tools to grab and manage your media. You can still use torrenting but IMO using usenet is more reliable and doesn't flag your ISP. I highly recommend anyone pirating to use 'arrs https://wiki.servarr.com/
Yes but with usenet you need to pay a monthly fee for a provider (generally) and a then the same for an index to find the content.
Also the selection is a lot smaller. IMHO a better solution is using realdebrid if you’re okay with paying already.
Yeah I can't argue with the usenet fees but all three of my index sites I've had no issues with their free version so long as you do go wild and download ten terabytes in a night. I've actually had better luck with the selection compared to torrenting, pretty much is there in all of the popular resolutions. The only thing I have finding is some of the obscure adult swim shows but I can't find them on my private trackers either.
Content leaving isn't a problem. If they give up some things they have more money to get the rights to other content, and usually by the time it leaves I've either watched it or don't want to. If it's one of the rare things I want to watch several times, I can just buy it. But cracking down on password sharing is ridiculous. They've been functioning fine with people sharing passwords. I bet the current pricing accounts for password sharing. But now people in college can't be on the family netflix? Pure greed.
Content leaving is totally a problem. I’ve lost track of the number of times my spouse and I say, “Oh hey, what about we finally watch xyz that’s been in our queue for ages? Yeah that seems like a good one for Friday pizza night! …oh, it’s vanished from our queue, hooray.”
It’s not my full time job to keep tabs on what’s coming and going from the damn entertainment service that I hope to use in my ever dwindling reserves of free time. Especially when there’s alternative means available that are not too difficult to use.
This is incredibly annoying for series. Crunchyroll dropped Bleach, a series with over 350 episodes, when I was at episode ~100. A few years ago I started to manually keep track of the episodes I watched, since you lose your progress when they drop it (true for crunchyroll, prime and netflix)
Shit that should be fucking illegal, this.
If they were not aware of it before buying then it is illegal.
You don’t actually need to be aware of it. Because you said you were aware of it, when you clicked Accept on the EULA, and on page 62 of the EULA it said they have the right to disable your printer remotely at any time and for any reason.
In decent nations, an EULA is considered an attempt by the seller to, after the purchase, change the terms of the implicit contract which was the sale, so it's has no legal standing whatsoever.
Absolutelly, the seller can set contract terms before the sale is done (and even then there are lots of limitations to avoid things like bait & switch, so it usualy has to be pretty clear and upfront and there are certain rights that a retail buyer simply cannot loose, even contractually), but never after the sale has been done.
EULAs only have legal standing in a few places, including a few States in the US.
EULAs can very well be legal when you can read tgem before you purchase. Though German courts somewhat assume that nobody reads them, which becomes relevant if somebody puts something very unexpected in there. I would expect that they somehow disable only the ink, not the whole printer. Apparently thi also makes buying used printers a mess.
When ever I am forced to sign something (like some contract addendum for my job) I write that I don't understand anything on that paper, or now I write it in email before e-signing.
Word
It should be. But you agreed to it. Gotta print out that child support declaration in 20 minutes before your lawyer has to go to court? Hey fuck you consumer. Have a medical emergency and need to print something to save a patient? Fuck you consumer.
Someone should sue them for everything they are. Because they are thieves of the highest order.
But you agreed to it.
When does an agreement become null and void when the knowledge and time needed to understand the terms, and especially whether they even stand in the various jurisdictions, is simply unfeasible for a layperson to be expected to possess?
In a similar vein, if an agreement requires a lawyer on call/retainer to interpret, what court besides a bought court would possibly uphold such a standard?
Fwiw I'm not asking this with the expectation of you personally having the answers, but to further highlight the absurdity of many of these so-called agreements.
EULAs and TOSs have been tossed out in court before under the logic that you need to understand an agreement for it to be legally binding and that not reading the agreement inherently prevents you from understanding it.
Can you provide case law? I'm interested.
Wikipedia has an overview and their enforceability varies pretty dramatically across the US (which is why many such agreements attempt to specify which states or courts they must be litigated against in).
In most of the World EULAs have no legal standing whatsoever because they're an attempt by the seller to after the sale change the terms of the sale.
It's mainly in the US that those things aren't instantly dismissed by the court as legally meaningless, but then again the US is way less consumer friendly that, for example, pretty much all of Europe.
Third voice for a Brother. I used to work an office supply store and they were by far the most reliable printers we sold.
I’ve had my Brother printer for several years and never had an issue. I don’t have the color one, just black and white. Would buy again.
I treat my Brother laser like a rented uhaul truck and it just keeps going.
I have one of the complicated brother ones that scans and prints, including double sides, in colour, and it's a tank. Works fine in Linux too. Connected or through the network.
It even does fax, which someone, somewhere probably finds useful.
Doctors offices and health insurance. It’s weird but technically fax machines are still considered “secure” communications for sending PHI. Sending it across the internet requires a lot of expensive hoops to jump through, or they could just buy a fax machine.
Send signed email. Done.
Bunch of weirdos, that's what they are.
Funny thing is those faxes are going through internet anyway most of the time.
Where I live fax are considered a legal proof contrary to emails.
So for important contracts it is considered safer than mails.
And honestly it kinda is since an email can totally end up never being recieved without any kind of error or warning. A fax you should know immediately that it wasn't received on the other end.
I still wish fax would disappear soon but an email is not a good replacement.
Emails are now considered the defacto standard for businesses but they suck and are absolutely not reliable.
That was because of a misunderstanding. Brother started a subscription service and people assumed that meant you had to pay a monthly fee to use the printers like with HP. Instead, it’s a toner subscription like Dollar Shave Club or Amazon’s Subscribe and Save where they auto-send a new toner at your requested interval.
I use cheap Chinese knockoff toner in my Brother laser
I heard they stopped allowing that recently.
Mine still allows it. There might be a model or two that doesn't but I'd be surprised.
Up to date firmware?
I treat that thing like a rented uhaul, of course the firmware hasn't been updated
I also heard a rumor about something somewhere, that maybe something might have happened. But I'm not sure. /S
I just installed a Brother printer for my dad, absolutely zero bullshit.
Yes, some of their firmware updates started breaking aftermarket toner cartridges and support said "that sucks" like it was very intentional. It seems constrained to a few of the MFC color models more than anything tho I've never had any issues other than bad wifi modules in the b&w home office lasers. Which if you're using wifi on a printer that's your own damn fault lol
Eh, I am all about wired networking wherever I can, but my awesome old Brother laser printer gets used like once per month or two, and it lives off in a far corner of the house where it isn’t taking up valuable space. Plus it could work with a tiny fraction of the LAN bandwidth available to it.
On wi-fi it stays, lol. I think I may have had to reconnect it once in the decade+ we’ve had it. Otherwise, the printout is ready before I can even walk to the printer (unless it has a ton of pages, naturally).
I don’t even know how old it is at this point. I just know it’s over a decade because I didn’t buy a third party toner cartridge until 2014.
Yeah I'm not sure whether this is shenanigans or an actual problem Brother is managing here. The post does mention there are problems with incorrect response to temperature management with the unoriginal cartridge, which again could theoretically cause harm.
I honestly wasn't aware unoriginal cartridges were a thing for Brother printers, since the originals tend to be quite reasonable.
But to continue using the unoriginal cartridges he can as the answer states, use BRAdmin to downgrade the firmware.
So it's not like Brother is attempting to take control of your printer like HP likes to do.
I'm sure HP didn't ramp up their bullshit from 0 to 11 overnight, the question now is how much we can trust Brother not to be walking the same path and mandating more and more restrictive firmwares in the future. I think them opensourcing drivers and firmwares would help mitigate that, and if their business model is really to be that sole good guy and antagonize the likes of HP/Epson/... they don't have anything to lose and a lot to win (or as a minimum, myself as a customer).
HP has done the ink cartridge shenanigans for more than 30 years now. They just recently found a new trick. Apart from that nothing has really changed.
I am not aware Brother ever did similar things to basically trick or cheat their customers. Most other vendors are somewhere in between. AFAIK none are as bad as HP.
My dad is running his Brother HL-1212W printer on the open source Linux driver, works perfectly fine, and I was actually surprised about the high quality of his prints for such a cheap printer.
AFAIK Brother is among the best regarding opensource drivers too.
All this printer talk almost makes me want to buy a new printer. My current printer is a 14 year old Samsung color laser, and the print quality is not that stellar anymore. ;) The Samsung open source driver kind of suck for this printer. There isn't even a driver for this specific model CLP-325W, so I have to choose another Samsung printer that is (mostly) compatible.
The Brother printer was completely plug and play. The system recognized the printer, and installed the correct open source driver, no hassle at all.
Can you avoid firmware updates? Are there domains that need to be blocked to prevent them?
Yes the firmware updates are only voluntary. The driver will sure nag you to do them but you can choose when and what version easily.
I've had the same brother inkjet printer for 14 years now, and it still works great.
I just read an article the other day that said LG is about to start charging subscription fees for washing machines 🙄
I will go old school and start washing my clothes against a rock in the river before I'll pay a fucking subscription to use my own washing machine
That is crazy.
Like a damn laundromat. So is LG gonna supply water and power too? Wtf are the charging for? The right to buy their product? Lmao. Fuck off.
Go analog. Real analog. Sticks and stones baby.
The article said the subscription was for "software updates" which really seems like something they should provide for free anyway so you're really just paying for the privilege to use their precious machine that you already paid for lol
Software updates for what? New ways to wash your clothes? I only use like two or three settings in mine
Knowing LG it's probably updates to make it play Jingle Bells at Christmas time or something lol
Sounds like paywalling security updates.
Those pesky hackers turning off my washing machine when I'm trying to do laundry!
Well, if your washing machine was connected to the internet you would also need security updates. Of course the only reason you'd connect your washing machine to the internet would be in order to get said security updates in the first place.
Great job creating a need by developing the fix for it in the first place.
Alerts for when the washer finishes its cycle. Reminders on when to do a tub clean. More detail when certain errors or anomalies are detected. Additional wash cycles for special load/fabric types that don't fit on the dial.I have used the internet connection on my washer for all of these things and it has been very useful.
My magical washing machine somehow knows how to do those things without an internet connection.
Potentially more serious than that. A poorly protected washing machine (or any other IOT device) can serve as an attack vector into your local network.
You're not wrong, but why the hell does a washing machine need to be Internet connected in the first place?
And since the first answer is always "So it can tell me when the cycle is done," set a frickin timer if it's that big of a deal.
I think maybe to turn in on remotely. Lets say you leave to work in the morning and you want to have your clothes washed and/or dried when you arrive from work, then you can turn it on remotely, but its still stupid
My washer has a delay timer on it. Is that not a common option?
I also have an option to start a small fan and spin the drum every few minutes, so it keeps wet clothes from getting mildewy. I use that every time, so I don't have nasty clothes when I inevitably forget to swap stuff into the dryer.
Oh, nice. I didnt know those were an option
Oh I agree totally.
I think it's for "smart" washing machines that you can control from your phone etc. So that's likely what the "updates" would be related too...why you'd need to control your washing machine from afar is beyond me but some people love smart gadgets and will by anything that connects to their phone.
There are cases for it, eg programming a wash to occur when energy demand is low.
In my opinion we should be pursuing technologies to do this that don't require an internet connection. Even being able to program a schedule into the machine and it can detect if something is in there or not. That would be enough since energy usage follows a relatively consistent plot. These companies don't give a shit about anything other than coming up with ways to make more money.
The cost of the laundry subscription is likely to vastly out cost the energy savings it may provide.
Ya it's a shit idea to go subscription in any situation. You really do not need any kind of ongoing updates/subscription unless the product was built around a subscription model. If it can done mechanically on basic programmable outlets then it can be coded the same way. I would be fine buying a laundry machine, asking my utilities provider what time to run it, and then programming that into the machine manually.
I hate the make everything a smart appliance trend... Grills, washers and dryers, dishwashers, coffee machines... WHY? No one needs this shit.
Huh. I do my best to avoid anything that connects to my phone.
Fucking software updates for a washing machine? If my washing machine needs a software update, that should be a fucking recall. A washing machine should be a fully embedded system imo.
It's updates for the cybersecurity that exists strictly only because it is connected to the internet which in turn is something that exists strictly only because there's software updates.
Megaman Battle Network was prophetic. Terrorist will flood your house using a phone.
Why would anyone connect a washing machine to the internet??? To play Skyrim?
I hope this is rage bait because I can’t think of any reason a washing machine would ever need a software update. Is it like a smart machine? If so then just let me disable it
what is the difference between a subscription and a never ending loan
With a loan you actually receive money at the start.
A loan usually comes with full support and warranty service for the duration of the loan. With a subscription I bet you get to pay without receiving these benefits in return.
Well any manufacturer warranty would apply to the machine regardless of how you pay for it
Yeah. I think I'd rather employ someone to wash my clothes for me than pay a subscription
man the world is so fucked up that I was more surprised that they weren't already doing this
Every time I think printers can't get any worse, they get worse.
What's next? are they going to have to scan your anus to confirm that it's actually you printing things? I shouldn't give them ideas.
By the way, I'm sure there's a way to get into the firmware of the printer to disconnect it from that centralized service.
Ready boys? Say it with me, now.
BROTHER👏LASER👏PRINTER👏
Best printer 2023: just buy this Brother laser printer everyone has, it's fine - The Verge
(or a laser printer in general, Brother is just a Known Brand)
Subscriptions are out of fucking hand.
It has been normalized by Streaming Services. Sad situation.
Looks like pirating is back on the menu, boys!
Never stopped my friend...
What the fuck is wrong with people? It's been common knowledge that hp is trash for decades now. The whole idea of capitalism is that the bad products fail when customers go to the competitors who do a better job, but hp is not a monopoly and there are better competitors that exist, but people keep in buying HP because frankly, they are too fucking stupid. Capitalism is a lie because consumers are too stupid to pick the best products.
HP printers are now pure scamming dog shit. The HP printer division must have been taken over by criminals.
The first laser printer I worked with was a HP 4L and it was fantastic. So fantastic, that we implemented it company wide, and they were close to immortal. The last of them got killed off when we got follow-me print.
If you want a decent laser printer today, stay clear of HP and get a Brother instead.
I've been saying for about 15 years now -- you'd have to be a masochist to buy HP printers. Why do people keep enabling these shits? You just encourage them to be even worse. Don't stand for even a little of their bullshit and they will change or die. You make a noose for your own neck.
Printer company are one of the biggest legalized scammer we currently have. Out water and some ink they make huge amount of Profit.
They are the Definition of making Gold out of shit.
Their laptops and desktops are terribly cheap too. Just avoid HP all together is everyone's best bet.
So they have all these printers connected to their servers I guess. Nice. Not a security risk at all.
Best printer I've owned has been Brother. But hp is always at the top of reviews, because hp pays them off I guess.
Homeowner-targeted inkjet printers are evil, especially from HP. NEVER buy one that works a subscription into the purchase. They are garbage, and can disable your cartridges if you cancel your subscription.
A shame to hear how far HP has fallen. Back in the day they had some solid, workhorse laser printers that delivered for years with no issues and pretty good toner efficiency. Based on what I've read here, I'm not likely to buy another.
"You'll own nothing and you'll be happy"
I guess this sentence is already became the reality in some countries if you can't even buy a god damn printer without it locking you out.
My mom's Amazon Halo that counts steps just shut off because they ended the service. I do not trust anything that requires live service at this point.
nobody should support companies that place restrictions on their hardware for RANSOM
This is generally for a business lease contract with HP. I've never seen this done to a printer the person buys outright, only for contracted leased "pay-per-use" printers.
HP does an ink subscription thing. They will try to trick you into it, too, so I'm sure lots of people sign up without realizing just by trying to use their printer software. Anyway, that ink stops working if you stop paying.
Yeah I looked into it, some models require the HP+ subscription to work. That's only on some of their loss leader models but still misleading, so that's still shitty
They come with a cartridge and "six months free ink" if you register.
But if you register and then six months later realize you never use it and you cancel...
They lock the cartridge
Yeah no thanks on ink subscription. Also, my printer still works great... but HP forgot how to write software apparently so now I use a 3rd party android print app. Ugh. I'm kind of fed up with the HP experience lately.
Yes. Co-worker got a super cheap printer, and then tried to cancel the ink subscription. turns out he couldn't just buy ink from them, and his printer was useless.
Yeah. It happened to me too. And they wouldn’t let me use the full ink cartridge I had because it was tied to the subscription. I had to go buy a completely separate ink cartridge and disconnect some other thing to print a stupid form. Fuck HP
Well I guess I will keep my 13 years old b/w laser printer then. Still works like a charm. There is no dried ink, no DRM, nothing. And it just works even it has not turned on for a year.
Buy a brother printer instead. They may be a bit more expensive, but their easy mantainance and the amount of bootleg ink you can find online makes it worth the extra price.
I hate these things. I took one out to an abandoned reservoir and blew it to pieces with a .12 gauge shotgun. Very therapeutic.
++ for brother. Still running my mfc j470 ink jet purchased in 2013. I purchased it because of their support of Linux and Android. I've NEVER used official ink cartridges besides what came with it. it's printed 6900 pages
FWIW I've an $100 brother laser (2140) the same age. The toner cartridges are $20 on eBay. I've bought two or three in the last 20 years.
When I last did a TCO analysis of printers brothers came out on top by a big margin.
I've done a few TCO's over the years... Brother is almost always up there...
I've had my current color laserjet for damn near a decade... bought it used/refurbed from them. I just hope brother doesn't try what the others are doing.
black toner is cheap, everything else is expensive as hell. But yes, toner printers are probably your best option for cheap printing.
Pretty sure toner is cheaper than what HP charges for ink.
I had an ancient laserjet for years and HP stopped making toner. Wished I had kept it and used 3rd party toner but I heard about others not having great experiences with that.
That said our old OfficeJet 8600 is still going great and no subscriptions.
How it is legal to charge a subscription for a device like that is beyond me. Need to pass state laws to stop that bullshit I think. That's the only way that might actually be remotely feasible.
Same, except it's an Officejet 6600 from early 2010. I use third party ink cartridges in it. Fuck those expensive "genuine" ink cartridges!
As this year has progressed I’ve become increasingly disillusioned by technology. Shit just stops working, random upgrades, and adverts invading my search results, the list is endless. I have an LG washer and needed to install an app to diagnose the problem. The Wi-Fi chip took multiple attempts to connect, and then the app required countless permissions to anything and everything. My work is making me travel and the hotel doesn’t have a check in desk, alas I need to install and app and upload my photo ID… ffs!!
There was a recent episode of Always Sunny where Denis takes a mental health day. It can’t be more accurate! I am so over being harassed by technology. To some degree I invited it into my life, I’ll own that. But I think I’m slowly becoming a willful Luddite and I’m absolutely fine with that!
I have a 1320n. When I bought toner about 5 years ago and it was $20 for third party, works fine. Every few months I flip it on, print a few pages (sometimes from my phone), and flip it off again. Ezpz.
At this point I'm afraid to update anything because it will turn into a debilitating subscription fee. One is whatever, but 50 of them is insane, and that's kinda where it's going. Monthly fee for breathing next.
Remember when mr krabs tried to make them pay for every little thing while at work
I switched to one of the Epson EcoTanks after the HP Ink got super expensive (Over $150 to replace all 4 cartridges). Printer was $$$ but the ink in bottles ($15 a pop, Costco sells them all in a pack for $40) is cheap enough that for the in-frequent printing we do at home (My partner uses it more than me for making buttons and stuff)
My in laws bought one of those damn HP’s. It had an issue 1 month in and required the special setup cartridges to re-run the wizard. But those had already been used up and discarded. It wouldn’t f-ing work with regular cartridges, and their subscription wouldn’t let them get more setup carts. Literal 1 month old e waste
I have absolutely no idea why anyone buys inkjet printers or cartridge razors. There are perfectly good alternatives that don't try and force you into a subscription model.
Business class laser printers are where it's at. I don't get why people still buy inkjets.
It's always funny to see content creators you watch appear randomly somewhere else Wendigoon is a great long form content creator for unfiction and conspiracy theories and here he is talking about a printer.
Okay so I see all this talk about ducky printers but if I want one that's not trying to guck me over which would that be?
Brother printers are fantastic. They cost a but more upfront but actually work
Additional hot take: get a laser printer for your normal documents and just get photos printed somewhere else. The money you'd spend buying 4x6 photos on someone else's ink and paper would probably be less than you'll pay for color ink unless you're an absolute photo printing maniac. And a laser printer toner cartridge will last you like 1,000+ pages.
Agreed, my wife and I got a Brother laser printer about 3 years ago and I still haven't had to change the toner. It's been telling me the toner is low for months but still keeps going strong. Granted we don't print a TON, but we print enough that the initial cost of a laser printer made sense.
This is the way to do it. Getting your photos printed by somebody else will be tons cheaper AND give you better results.
Second this. Bought a Dell one 10 years ago and it's still working like a charm! Got me through all of Uni Ani besides the finicky diva driver it's just amazing!
Yep, I bought a Brother laser printer for $120 a few years ago. I don't use it super often, but it's been reliable and easy to use whenever I need it. I've never had to replace the toner. It just works.
Is it good for someone who constantly needs to print documents
This is just anecdotal, but I work in IT and I can’t recall a brother printer ever giving me a headache. HP is obviously the worst.
HP is obviously the worst.
HP is special kind of printers shitcompany. They probably spent years on doing market research to understand what people NOT want, so they can do exactly that. 😂
HP used to make rock solid laser printers back in the late 90s and 00s. Shame what they turned into.
makes me wonder, how are they still in business doing that?
A laser printer is best no matter if you print a lot or a little.
Brother will generally be an excellent choice. While HP will generally be probably the worst choice you can make.
Edit:
Just to be clear, laser is better if you print a little, because the laser cartridge doesn't dry, and can last a decade. While even if you don't print a lot, you will need to replace ink cartridges regularly, because they dry out.
If you print a lot, the laser printer is both more reliable, faster and cheaper to use.
As long as you don’t need color a laser printer is way better for printing documents.
I love my color laser. (Again, props to Brother). It takes off-brand toner with no fuss and hasn't failed to print yet.
I don't know that I would print photos with it, but it's more than sufficient for everyday documents and even game manuals.
I printed a ton of documents in university with a black and white brother laser printer. All my notes were always printed, for example.
Still have it over a decade later.
The best. Color laser is pricey but not many people would need that.
Needed something to print the occasional document for bureaucracy stuff, and I also got a Brother printer a while ago. Used, laser (very important for good value imo), 100 bucks. An older model, black-and-white but with wifi support. Didn't need to register my license, create a cloud account or whatever other shit companies come up with these days, I could just turn it on and it worked.
They're incredibly reliable. I've had the same Brother laser printer for a good 15 years now. Possibly longer. Old enough that there's no wifi or bluetooth options, but it's a network printer because it has ethernet.
I made my old brother a wifi printer with the help of a raspberry pi.
Second the recommendation for a Brother. I've rarely had problems with them. Above all do NOT buy an HP printer because they come with every form of nickel-and-dime known to mankind.
Alternatively, for the once in a blue moon that the average person needs to actually print things in the modern day, bring your local library a fiver and use their printer. This is the way I do things, because I rarely ever need to print a document. When I do, it's a ten minute drive and a five dollar or less cost and then I don't have to bother with owning a printer.
But in general, Brother is a good brand, and a laser printer will be less hassle and easier to manage than an inkjet, but will have a bit higher purchase cost.
A lot of my printing happens when parents visit. They love to print everything. I'm much more likely to use the scanner on my Brother printer than actually print.
Yes on the Libraries! Libraries are often incredibly cheap for printing, and most of them have an online uploading tool so you can print things from your home computer or phone without any hassle. Plus, at least at the library I work at, we have incredibly high quality printers and your docs / photos will come out a lot better than how they would if you were at home, as well as a scanner that can give you a 600dpi TIFF file
Just please try not to hand us a twenty for something that costs 1/100th of that - we often don't have enough small bills to make change. (Or do and put it on your account for later, if that's an offered option, or better yet donate the remainder 😉)
In Germany there are a lot of stores that let you use their printer for 10ct per page. Is this not the case in the US (or wherever you live)?
FedEx and Staples have document printers for less than 10 cents a page. This is what I've been doing for years now, when someone won't just take a PDF straight up.
Go to the library next time and see if they'll let you do it for free. They may very well.
Most businesses in the US have a hard rule against connecting any outside hardware to the network, for security purposes. If you bring them a USB drive you will be asked to leave. If you can get whatever you need printed into a company email, you might stand a chance, but it would frequently require you having a personal connection to someone in the company willing to print your document for you, and depending on the document it will often not be appropriate for business email. American businesses are not really set up to be print shops and most of them would likely not help you unless you go somewhere like a Fedex-Kinkos that IS explicitly a print shop.
Libraries, however, will always have a printer you can use. It just costs, usually a negligible amount per page (10-50 cents depending on the particular library), but they've got no issues with you showing up with a USB drive and printing off of it, or logging into your own document storage (email, onedrive, etc) to print from there, because the computers are intended for public use.
Brother ist the way to go. Also OK for Linux in my experience
From my experience, printer support on Linux is often better than on Windows because all the drivers are included in the kernel and you don't have to go driver hunting on obscure websites.
The new brothers also work fine with chrome os.
I just got around to setting up my Brother MFC-2750DW in OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. I was prepared for a long process, but Brother publish Linux drivers for it and the whole setup took about 5 minutes. Works perfectly over wifi. Easiest Linux printer setup I've ever done. And it's happy with third-party cartridges too.
Most hp models are fine, I have a laser jet I swear by.
THROW IT OUT THE WINDOW
Back in my days we were able to purchase the printers
Fuck HP.
Source: my dad worked at HP so most of my computers and printers growing up were HP.
it was an amazing company that did legendary, pioneering research and development and made outstanding research tools. the HP of today is the result of 50 years of mergers, acquisitions, conglomeration, and violent shittification.
The HP you mention still exists today as Hewlett-Packard Enterprises, a separate company from HP Inc, which is the consumer-facing brand. It's very similar to what Motorola did in splitting into enterprise and consumer companies.
Fun fact! Motorola started out as a company making record players specifically for cars. The big name in record players at the time was Victrola, and since they were making them for motorcars they called themselves MotoRola.
I didn't know that! Having vinyl in the car tho.... hmmm... seemed to work out just fine for them though.
Even more fun! In-car record players were made upside-down so that the weight of the record held it against the needle. These are all of my record player facts.
I'm fairly sure that HP Enterprises includes their IT outsourcing arm and anybody who's had experience with them will confirm how shit they are too.
Fuck HP
buy laser printers. ink is pretty cheap and as we refill cartridge. i have a hp and and never suffer these subscription shit.
learn to print to pdf and save the file. can always print but even better you can email it etc. brother laser scanner is best I've owned. son bought me one of these, "Brother MFC-L2710DW series Printer" to replace a still working brother laser 2170w, 10 yo. I don't print a lot but wife prints every receipt which end up in the trash
Looks like I'm not changing my almost 10 year HP LaserJet printer after all..
Maybe not the same, as its more of a service contract. At work, we have had a site which has been closed for 2 years. for 2 whole years, every week the vending machine company arrive, try to get in, can't, ring us, and we say "that site is closed".
Well we finally after 2 years got them to remove that site from their system?
Their response? to remove ALL food from ALL vending machines at all our sites, to remove the coffee machines, and to remove the water coolers. The water coolers are especially egregious, as they just sit there doing nothing. they are from tap water, so not even replacing bottles etc.
Sometimes subscriptions are useful. I wish the BBC TV licence in the UK was a subscription. I cannot justify spending £150 on a licence for an entire year, just to watch a month of shows. but other times it sucks. I just want Microsoft office. I don't care if it will cost me £200. Right now my favourite game is subscription based, but i don't think i can justify the £9.99 a month, or £50 for a whole year. £50 for lifetime access? maybe.
LibreOffice has more functionality and it's actually free
With the current situation, no way you are getting a lifetime access. Companies have discovered that people actually pay for subscriptions even if they don't add anything worthwhile to keep you renewing.
You are just renting and there is no option to buy.
You can still buy liscenses for office. I just bought a key off a shady vendor for $30 and have a fully activated, non subscription office 2022
...until Microsoft decides to disable this obviously hacked Office
Dont think they can, it's a real key for the software, the distributor just gets them bulk and through "grey" channels. There's a whole writup on it.
Regardless i used to full pirate the whole office suite and hadn't had an issue for 20 years, I'll just go back to that if they somehow decide this key is illegitimate
HP Printers is definitely one of the worst printers right now; I hate you need a account to use your HP printers
Even worse, if you subscribe to the ink service with an HP printer, it will update the firmware. But if you decide to cancel the service, they don't change the firmware so you now own a brick.
If you print regularly, HP's 6 cent per page, 100 pages per month plan is about the same price as a small black and white laser's drum and toner.
But you can plan full page photos on photo paper with it for that 6 cent too, not just BW documents. I like it, a full year costs about the same as 1 set of XL OfficeJet ink and you never have to try to save money by going BW / draft mode. Just print whatever. Clean the head whenever needed. It's all included.
Yes it is a subscription, but this one is actually useful. And it gets cheaper the more you print, up to small office volumes. We have it at multiple offices on a 300/700 pages plan.
Wait, 6 cents? That's three times what I paid to print stuff at uni.
Okay that was a decade ago, but still, I don't pay 3x for other office services.
What are good printer companies? Fuck HP and Epson
Get a Brother laser. Don't bother with color.
people always say this, but 95% of what i print is index and reference cards that need colour :( I would love to get a B&W printer, but i need the colours.
Color Laserjet is the way if you "need" colors. The only time inkjet is any better is if you're printing actual photo quality stuff. But at that point it's cheaper to just buy it through an online company like https://www.nationsphotolab.com/prints.aspx rather than maintaining the printer itself.
Well shit. I literally have never needed color for printing but I get it.
Brother
My Brother printer has been going for about 14 years, so I recommend them.
OK, but what printer does your brother use?
Also a Brother :P
HP certainly needs fucked with a pineapple, Epson otoh, I'm not so sure, I have two eco-tank printers and have had no issues with them whatsoever.
I have an ecotank too. No BS subscription shenanigans, painless to get it working. What impresses me is the lack of it breaking if it sits even months between uses, usually not even needing to be cleaned.
And since ink can be bought in bulk, it's cheap to run too.
Epson are ok as long as you remember they're descended from Tamagochis. Leave them alone for a month and they'll sometimes clog up for ever.
Canon laser printers
I have an Epson ink tank one and it's 100 times better than HP. Is Epson really that bad?
I had a terrible experience with epson
Brother used to be a holdout, but they probably aren't anymore.
If you get a Brother, it’s best to go with laser, as the toner will last ages. If you’re on a budget, the Brother inkejet I have gives zero shits what cartridges I put in there, as long as they’re the right shape. I usually have to clean the contacts on top of the cartridges before inserting like it’s an NES, though.
Buy a slightly older one. I have a cannon now, it's works great. I don't print all that much anyway, so I'm not too knowledgeable about printers tbh.
Can you homebrew a printer? Maybe fake responses to phone-homes?
It's so cool that we live in a world where you can 3d print a gun more reliably than you can 2d print an insurance card
This should be illegal, hell I have a TP-Link router and it’s got a subscription model for the features, that a decade ago were basic features of a router that you’re spending hundreds of dollars on. Unless we make it unpopular from a media/social standpoint, they’ll keep it up. Too make it worse, the router won’t even allow you to manually choose your own channels, you have to let it decide for you. Even if you have an IT background and can decipher the better channel, it decides to choose heavily trafficked channels on all bands. Let me make me own mistakes and learn, I don’t want to be forced like an invalid in a nursing home.
Meanwhile my laser Kyocera prints full color full duplex and doesn't try any funny business.
I got a printer where I fill up the ink tank myself. Fuck all these other printers.
The printer business is tantamount to the gangster era. Fucking thieves.
I don't get how this is legal, and my guess is that it isn't in EU and many other countries that aren't USA.
Anyone ever heard one of these stories from EU?
They offer it in the EU. They don't force you to choose the subscription, you can also just choose to buy the cartridges at the store outright if you want to. I don't really understand the big hoopla about being offered that choice.
If you sign up for the subscription, the printer is "adjusted" to disallow store bought cartridges while it is enrolled
The big hoopla is that in some cases they disable your printer so you can't buy your ink independently. That's the part I suspect is illegal in EU. Obviously subscriptions aren't illegal.
Welcome to the future you now have to pay a sub or learn how to jail break your printer to get full use of it owner ship is almost dead folks time to break up big printer so you can refill your ink cartridges and print without a subscription
Anyone find a source or proof on this having happened?
It's a printer, and for fucks sake, BMW is locking you out of certain features of their cars if you don't pay per month.
Telsa cars will drive themselves out of your house if you miss a payment.
Ford’s patent document also mentioned playing annoying audio meant to bother drivers dodging payments.
The patent filing also clarified that late payments might result in a driver given partial access to their vehicle during the week so they can earn money for financing, Insider reports.
Sounds like they want to be in court a lot. There's no way any of that is safe.
Oh yeah. How long until the vehicle repossesses itself when a child is in the car? The lawsuits would be massive.
Why are they getting patents for stuff like that? I thought patents were for mechanical inventions only, not new money schemes to stop others from doing the same so you're known for that scheme?
Ford’s patent application mentions the possibility of payment plans for financially struggling drivers and exceptions for when a person is hospitalized or out of the country.
This is some dystopian shit right here.
Same thing happened to my mom's HP except that they sent her the wrong cartridges so she closed her account. They bricked her printer. I bought her a Brother.
I just bought a Brother laser printer for my dad, because he needed help changing the ink cartridges, after having printed maybe 8 pages in ½ a year. It's just too stupid to use ink printers today, no matter if you print a little or a lot.
I'm guessing the laser cartridge will last my dad a decade. lol
And it uses dry toner, so it'll never clog because you didn't use it!
Exactly. We've had our color laser for about 14 years, and it still runs on the original toner cartridges!
Good points on the ink jet. I'm not sure laser printers are really toxic. Yes 30-40 years ago there were problems with ozone for heavy printing environments, or if you sat right next to the printer. But AFAIK the ozone levels have been reduced, and for small printers it's not a problem. While ozone is toxic, it is also naturally occurring, and we can tolerate low levels of it.
Regarding chemicals in the toner, it was a problem way way back, because in high volume environments that shit sometimes would be all over the place. Because containers weren't tight enough. I don't recall seeing toner in or around laser printers for home office for the past 2 decades. I'm guessing production environments have improved similarly too, but I haven't been much in contact with those lately.
There are clear work environment regulations in most (western) countries, that date back to the early 80's and even earlier. As a minimum those regulations must be met. So yes there are actually health and safety laws around laser printers. And AFAIK they are completely safe unless you are doing something illegal or incredibly stupid.
debit card on file had expired
How do you input your credit card into the printer? Or is this some printer-lease-contract situation?
…I’ve somehow lived this long without realizing that HP printers apparently need subscriptions to run now.
Most don’t. There is a subscription service where you get ink every quarter automatically and you can’t skip shipments, but you have to choose that. Otherwise, most businesses have leased copy machines and printers for a long time now. Outsourcing maintenance can save money and simplify office administration.
My HP only works when I don't need it anymore. It's always doing shit when I want to orint something. It takes forever and then i just give up..
Same, I've just been using a really old HP Deskjet that has no external display, can't connect to the internet and only prints (doesn't scan)
It very likely is tied to the firmware that bricked HPs around the world in May or so. HP is silent on it and customer service isn't acknowledging the issue.
Tankie bullshit! Obviously competition will mean corporations will act benevolently.
Seems related
Incredibly annoying. Especially with all these apps that want to charge you monthly. Fucking nuts thinking I'm gonna pay 30 a year for the rest of my life to look at radar.
Heh. Another symptom of the second gilded age we now find ourselves experiencing.
*buy it
Yesterday i got the standard setup steps from windows after booting. I use to skip them most of the time, because i don t want to use edge and so on and sometimes they reapear. Yesterday i thought, i'll do them now, then never again this will bother me. When i got to the point of logging into my microsoft account i could not remember the password and had no possibility on the gui to get back and skip all, leaving me seemingly unable to use my own frickin computer. As i got more and more angry i clicked on "forgot password" which sends me an email with a code. I see the email appear on my phone and without even a chance of entering the code it sent me back to the enter password prompt. Even more angry and cursing to myself i pressed the forgort password text again leaving me with the same result. As i was close to exploding, my computer somehow decided to show "You are finished!" like he knew i had enough.
All your worries with printers disappear the moment you replace them with a scanner.
There’s a recent post on HN talking about this similar behavior with content platforms.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36974358https://old.reddit.com/r/applehelp/comments/15gechw/apple_just_stole_hundreds_of_dollars_from_me/
Basically users Apple account gets flagged for “fraudulent problems”. User loses access to all “bought”/rented content associated with Apple account. CS is useless. CS manager useless as well.
It’s a well documented story with any content platform. This is far from being an isolated issue.
Personally, piracy and ripping Blu-rays is back on the table for me and using a media server only accessible via VPN.
I was actually thinking of getting an Apple account and backing my files up to their cloud. Glad I read this before I made that mistake.
apple used to be my go to but decided to deplatform from them. All of the iTunes music, videos, and tv shows I bought over the years have been pirated or ripped to my media server.
All personal files and media is backed up on my personal cloud/server with redundant backups to another server that I own.
Just freecycled an almost new HP printer/scanner because of their ridiculous software locked cartridges that print like 20 pages total. I specified in the listing that the ink was expensive and that it would be best for someone who printed almost never and just wanted a scanner.
This is the reason I went with Epson for printing for many years, and had no issues! But I don't print anymore.
Just go to Staples!
Mine has been collecting dust for a few years now, I stopped buying ink cartridges because I'd buy them and print just a few things once in awhile until that shit would just dry up even tho I didn't use it all so fuck them.
Capitalism leads to innovation they say! This is an innovation in a way some may say !
.
To be fair, this person could be using a business printer. Large multifunction printers offices use can cost $10k+ and require A LOT of work so small companies and firms that can’t outright afford the upkeep usually lease the printer and that lease comes with warranties and maintenance covered by the company its leased from.
HP has something called an "instant ink" subscription plan
If you sign up for the plan, you cannot use ink official hp ink which is purchased in a store, you must use the ink hp ship's you when you get low. If your payment is declined, the printer is disabled until you go through their hateful cancellation progress, or you fix your payment and let them ship you new cartridges.
This is 100% on a consumer printer.
And here's someone making excuses for a billion dollar company based on nothing but imagination. HP isn't your friend, they're only driven to seek profit.
What's more likely, that there's a legitimate reason the printer needs a subscription or that the printer company is just trying to nickle and dime the end user again to squeeze every penny out of them without providing additional value?
BTW when one of our offices large multifunction printer has issues we call the vendor that maintains it, NOT the company that manufactured it.
I doubt that Wendigoon is using a $10k+ business printer.
Wendigoon is a youtuber, i don't think they need to print so much they'd requure an industrial sized printer