Title: I recently bought a Brother colour laser printer, with the understanding that OEM toner was not chip-locked.<p>Wanting to update the firmware, and being on Linux, I started to look at ways to do it manually.<p>After finding a few guides to do so manually:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;wiki.archlinux.org&#x2F;title&#x2F;CUPS&#x2F;Printer-specific_problems#Updating_the_firmware" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;wiki.archlinux.org&#x2F;title&#x2F;CUPS&#x2F;Printer-specific_probl...</a>
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.earth.li&#x2F;~noodles&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2015&#x2F;11&#x2F;updating-hl3040cn-firmware.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.earth.li&#x2F;~noodles&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2015&#x2F;11&#x2F;updating-hl3040cn...</a><p>I decided to poll my printer.  I then noticed an OSS&#x2F;python project to just handle it via a package.  However, I noticed this issue:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;sedrubal&#x2F;brother_printer_fwupd&#x2F;issues&#x2F;9">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;sedrubal&#x2F;brother_printer_fwupd&#x2F;issues&#x2F;9</a><p>Startled, I Googled... and the printer listed is an inkjet.  For a second I was relieved, but then started to search for other issues, and found this:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;printers&#x2F;comments&#x2F;s9b2eg&#x2F;brother_mfc_firmware_update_nongenuine_toner_now&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;printers&#x2F;comments&#x2F;s9b2eg&#x2F;brother_mf...</a><p>Not only is the above, post-sale firwmware update a change of what I understood to be Brother&#x27;s historical policy, the <i>method</i> is beyond evil.<p>Brother seems to be apparently accepting the ink, but then <i>purposefully</i> making the print quality poorer.<p>I literally cannot think of something, product wise, more evil.  It&#x27;s one thing to say &quot;We refuse to use 3rd party toner&quot;, and another to <i>accept</i> the toner, and then just purposefully print like garbage.<p>I was a happy HP customer for years, and only switched to Brother (which, by all accounts, is a much smaller &#x2F; less renowned company) for the sole reason to not be vendor locked.<p>I will likely return this printer, but thought HN should know what Brother seems to be up to.
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