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.
Why I went to DVDs. There is libre software to rip them and depending on country it’s legal, so basically you get a DRM-free legal copy with ability to archive or lend to a friend.
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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.
It’s really good quality. In my opinion low resolution only matters in static images or when video is paused, I’ll take high bitrate and superior sound every day instead of today’s streaming.
Sure you can just download, super convinient and gives best results. But sometimes it’s good to do things the way that can scale in society or just actually own something you like :).
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.
I have 4k TV and 5.1 studio speakers and noone in my house can see the difference from modern streaming besides a little grain on still images. Always buy newer, at least two-layered disks, they are much better.
Of course that’s nothing compared to 4K/DTS/DA/HDR Blu-Ray rip, but it’s not that the movie is not watchable. DVD is the basic experience, 2010s cinema like, where Blu-Ray is just a crispy fresh layer added.
What software would that happen to be, supposing it’s not MakeMKV?
Plain VLC can do it. You may need to at least install libdvdcss and libdvdread packages, they are 100% open source and easy to obtain, but you need to read the guide for specific OS because some system distribution repositories does not ship them by default for legal reasons in a few countries.
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.
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Except when I accidentally rm -rf the media folder but shhhhhhhh
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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.
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/
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.
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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 purchase, 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 are only valid 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.
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.
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).
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.
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?
Saw some people posting recently they sold out also
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!
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.
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.
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.
I hate the make everything a smart appliance trend… Grills, washers and dryers, dishwashers, coffee machines… WHY? No one needs this shit.
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.
Huh. I do my best to avoid anything that connects to my phone.
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
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?
what is the difference between a subscription and a never ending loan
With a loan you actually receive money at the srart.
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.
man the world is so fucked up that I was more surprised that they weren’t already doing this
Yeah. I think I’d rather employ someone to wash my clothes for me than pay a subscription
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…
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)
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.
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.
HP have been on my shitlist for so long. Everyone needs to have a shitlist. Anti consumer behaviour should never be forgotten.
On a side note, Vodafone are also on my shitlist. I did give them a reprieve once only to be reminded of why they were on my shitlist.
People, get your shit together.
This is true if everybody do it, otherwise nothing will change. As we know there are too many people on the planet and too many idiots among them that will buy these products and so company can’t get away with everything nowadays. Look at Facebook, Twitter, reddit, hp. In my country there’s a huge food company that put fucking poison in baby formulas, and killed some of them (and others with lifetime growth issues) and guess what? People stopped buying from them for 2 years, they pulled through and now they are one of the top companies.
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.
What’s next?
Printed ads.
I can picture it, if you don’t want ads printed at the bottom of every page you have to subscribe.
I would think it plays an ad on the screen and you have to touch it to start so it knows you’re there and doesn’t print until the ad is finished.
Or get the brother printer while they’re still good.
What’s next?
The firmware will ask for a tip every 10 pages.
Please drink a verification can
“PLAYER ATTEMPTING TO STEAL ONLINE PLAY!!!”
mom just walked in the room
If they could get away with it, they would have made paper that only works on their printer, and it would be more expensive than normal paper but you have to use it.
Dymo has done that a year ago.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=xzSDJRC0F6c
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
A whole other brown ring of quality
Why not just not allow it to connect to any internet and use wired printing?
Please drink verification can to continue
Actually, someone already came up with the idea of anal fingerprinting, albeit in another context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
I recently had an HP printer to set up for a client (IT as well), and it only had USB 2.0 and Ethernet interfaces. The printer needed an internet connection and activation online before it would even let you print over USB, and of course the Ethernet port was dead and wouldn’t connect, so now it’s just a shitty white brick with HP stamped on it. At least they were able to return but how does that make sense in practice?
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.
The best. Color laser is pricey but not many people would need that.
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.
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.
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.
HP is a horrible company. They make things up just to make life difficult for consumers. Everyone should boycott them I make sure none of the hardware the company I work for is HP as well.
But your subscription to what exactly ?
Giving HP money. Protection money. Because you know, it’d be a shame if for some unfortunate and unrelated reason you couldn’t print on your printer anymore. Accidents just happen. Every day.
Because fuck you, that’s why. -HP
Ink cartridges. Instead of paying up front, they send you cartridges for ‘free’ and automatically dispatch replacements whenever they get low (or if you have a problem like they get so gummed up the head clean can’t fix them) If you don’t want the subscription, you have to buy your own carts retail, then it’s just like a ‘traditional’ printer.
The sub itself isn’t (in my opinion) scummy just a value proposition. What is a bit scummy is that the carts that come with the printer are yours, but you can enroll them in the sub service. You can do that the day you buy it or right before they run out. In theory they’re supposed to revert to ‘owned’ if the sub is cancelled, but I’ve heard there can be hoops to jump through. The carts that come with the printer are tiny compared to either retail or rental so won’t last long either way.
I still use the same printer I got in 2004. Hp color laser jet 2600n. Highly recommend. It’s large and loud and toner is pricey. But toner is widely available, you can easily get 2,000+ pages out of a toner cart, I’ve generally found it to have native driver support in macOS and Linux at this point, it has an Ethernet jack so you can print over network, etc. the toner is also much more reasonable if you only print black and white, the $$$ is if you change all the toner carts at once.
It does have a toner tracking chip but you can override that in the firmware. they used to actually allow you to do such a thing!! It’s not even like a secret developer menu thing, it’s just an option you can pick although iirc it warns you print quality may suffer. or you can just buy blank chips for a few bucks, it’s just a little plastic tab that you break off and then you slide the old one out and the new one in. But that’s more for if you plan to refill the toner carts which I do not recommend; it’s a messy process where you have to burn/cut a hole in the cart, refill with powder, then seal it with tape. I tried it a few times and it was a huge mess and lead to leaky carts; not worth saving the $50 bucks or whatever
I’m pretty sure in like 2040 my house will be an anachronism of old tech like this. It’s already mostly there with some notable exceptions. If I have to subscribe I won’t buy it; if I buy it and find out I need to subscribe I’ll return it or sell it. I will pay month by month for items that justify a need for ongoing payment (like I pay once a year for Usenet access). But I don’t think I am in the target demo for basically any company lol
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.
Same, except it’s an Officejet 6600 from early 2010. I use third party ink cartridges in it. Fuck those expensive “genuine” ink cartridges!
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.
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.
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!
