There is a little window on the cartridges the printer shines a light through to detect the toner. When it can see the light you get out-of-toner errors. If you mark over it with a sharpie, it will print again. I'll be the judge of when it's out of toner based on how faded the print is. As infrequently as I print this trick can make a cartridge last months longer.

I used to use a common hole punch to make a little disc from black electrical or black gaffers tape and use that to cover the toner windows because I found that Sharpie just wasn't opaque enough in all cases, especially with my Brother color laser.

And then I discovered the paint pens my wife uses for rock painting. Now, those really work.

Thanks for the tip, I may have to try this next time mine gets low. Do you know if this applies to most toner cartridges?

Seems to be unique to Brother cartridges.

Only problem with Brother on Linux seems that they do bot distribute drivers in source code but a binary-only Debian package. So, while they seem to have a good reputation for Linux support, there is still lots of room for improvement.

Ah, and also on the newwer Brother printers one has to do a complicated configuration menu dance to get rid of "Toner cartridge empty" warnings, in order to do a "Toner Reset", which lets one continue to use a half-empty cartridge. Some kind of fools' tax, it seems.

Why do you need a driver? I thought basically every 2020 printer - and CUPS - supported AirPrint.

Thanks. This is useful info.

Brother's site says my printer does support AirPrint. And through the printer's internal web server, I can see under Network -> Protocol that AirPrint is there and enabled.

I have the binary blob driver installed, so I guess this explains why two entries appear for this printer under Printer settings in Ubuntu.

So, a minor mystery is solved, and I now see that I have the option of removing this driver.

I just last week got a new Brother printer and went through the process of installing the proprietary driver, which for some reason requires the 32 bit version of libc. I had ignored the "Airprint" option because I assumed it had something to do with wireless printing. Apparently it did originally, but now it has more to do with driverless printing. So yes, thank you.

I have a Brother MFC printer on my network and my Ubuntu has it popping up automatically after install. No drivers were needed. Installing on Windows takes more work.

Ah! Yay!

And basically every printer natively supports PostScript and PCL which are "almost generic" but can come with a ppd file that has your printers specific options and error codes.

And I'm seeing lots of printers come with native PDF/DVI support which is nice.

For features other than printing A4 business documents in Fast quality? Photos, CD-R, model making decals etc often require proprietary Windows drivers to do right.

For printing academic research papers in reverse page order to hand staple and read, indeed you don’t need drivers.

Is there Linux support for printing to AirPrint printers though?

Recent printers feature 'IPP Everywhere' which are 'driverless'.

Brother's proprietary garbage driver is not needed for their older printers; there's a reverse-engineered 'brlaser' driver that you can use instead.

I never had to install any drivers. It all just worked.

To be honest, I have no idea how. It just shows up as a network printer.

I have an older model brother, but it requires no drivers on Linux. You just set it up as a generic postscript compatible printer in CUPS.

I agree, the inexpensive laser printers are amazing.

But I do wonder whether this problem will continue to be specific to ink jet printers. It's easy enough to make a laser printer refuse to print with a third party cartridge.

Many refrigerators do the same thing to prevent you from using third party water filters. I think this is a more general pattern than inkjet printers.

There is definitely lots of DRM-type stuff happening in laser printers, mostly on the higher end. It goes beyond just 3rd party, too.

The best example I've heard from this was from {large-copier-manufacturer}. Someone (not an official dealer) in the middle east had purchased a truckload of copiers and cartridges in a fire sale from a business in the UK that was closing. They sold these copiers locally, of course undercutting regular local prices. Everything was fine until all the customers needed new toner, which they purchased locally, and suddenly got errors telling them the toner was incompatible.

What happened is while the copiers themselves are the same globally, the cartridges are region-encoded. The first time the copier powers on, it does a write-once setting to region-lock itself to whatever cartridge is installed. There's apparently no factory reset or software change to modify this setting (in the name of security), so the only fix was either to import cartridge from the UK (which the official dealers can't even do) or replace the mainboard to fully reset the thing back to how it comes from the factory.

If anyone knows of this mentioned by a credible source; I need to know whom to never support financially again.

The printer in the article is a laser printer. The only thing that matters is if the manufacturer thinks customers will accept this abuse.

This is the most annoying trope. Yes, I want color printing. Why wouldn’t I want color printing?

I feel like the “black and white brother laser” attitude is like buying a car with no air conditioning because you’ll save five hundred bucks off the sticker price.

The reason to choose inkjet:

1. Black and white sucks

2. Color lasers are huge and don’t really save money on toner vs. ink for typical home users.

My current printer is an HP OfficeJet 9015, which has been excellent. Zero software needed for Windows 10, iOS (AirPrint), macOS.

Another thing those cheap brother laser printers don’t give you is, you know, features. My inkjet printer has a scanner, auto document feeder with auto duplex, and auto duplex printing.

If you want all that with a color laser you end up with a monstrosity in your house.

> Color lasers are huge

Since all the praise here has been for Brother laser printers, I went looking for the cheapest B&W and color laser printers they offer. That would be the HLL2300D and HLL3210CW respectively. The first one is 14.0" W x 14.2" D x 7.2" H, while the second one is 16.1” W x 18.1” D x 9.9” H. So it's 2 inches wider, 4 inches longer, and 3 inches taller. Doesn't seem that much bigger to me:

https://comparesizes.com/saved/CompareSizes_HLL2300D_vs_HLL3...

> and don’t really save money on toner vs. ink for typical home users.

At the very least, toner cartridges drying out isn't really a thing.

>If you want all that with a color laser you end up with a monstrosity in your house.

Your HP OfficeJet 9015 has official dimensions of 17.3" x 20.46" x 10.94". The Brother MFC9340CDW also has a scanner with ADF with auto-duplex (and does it in one pass, actually), and auto-duplex printing. Its dimensions are 16.1" x 19.0" x 16.1". So it's true that the color laser is taller. However, it has a smaller footprint, which is what matters for most people when trying to situate a printer.

One feature that your OfficeJet does not have that I appreciate (and this Brother AIO has) is a manual feed slot, which lets me skip the rigamarole of emptying the paper tray, fiddling with the tray to fit the envelope or whatever custom paper I'm using, printing, and then reversing what I previously did. That likely contributes at least a little bit to the height.

For the things I print, color doesn't really matter.

Do I care about the color of the airline logo on my bording pass? Nope.

When I print driving directions, do I care about the colors? Maybe a little.

Does color matter for recipies? Not really.

I still got a color laser printer during lockdown to replace the inkjet that I can't print to with Chrome OS anymore (thanks to Google killing Cloud Print). It wasn't too much extra to support it for just in case, and color toner won't spoil by sitting like on the inkjet.

I think it's a trope because most people really don't need color printing, so that advice is appropriate for them.

I, for example, have only ever used my printer to print such things as tickets and documents which must be mailed for bureaucratic reasons. My hunch is that this describes many others too.

I think that “most people” really means “most programmer type computer nerds on hacker news.”

I think most people prefer having color. The top 8 printers on Best Buy’s website are all color and/or photo printers.

For whatever it's worth:

I just switched from a Brother printer to Lexmark. Not sure if it's Brother itself or just the model, but my particular printer only could connect over WiFi (no ethernet option), and it kept getting confused about it's IP address and dropping from our network. I bought a different printer after losing several hours of needing to use my limited network engineering skills to diagnose so I could print out worksheets for my kids. I haven't had issues since.

When I did tech support for HP some 20 years ago, our advice to consumers was never to refill your toner as the photo reactive material on the drum would wear over time.

I always assumed this was true and the cartridge would last maybe 2-3x the initial amount of toner. I’m amazed that is 10 years! That’s awesome.

I have seen the photo reactive material wear. Seems to be rough particles come from somewhere and scratch it.

Even if you occasionally do need color I’d consider buying only a black-and-white printer.

The major office supply chains and UPS stores offer online print services, so for the occasional color print job I just send it to one of them and pick it up the next time I’m out for lunch.

Or go to the library!

Brother also has a handy iOS app for printing and scanning.

It's available on Android too.

No, clicking through this thread and the big threads [1] [2] in the past 5 days, commenters mentioning "Brother laser" have much more than 100,000 combined karma and most of the accounts are 3+ years old.

With a history like Brother's, and awful competitors like HP and Canon inkjets, you too can get free, genuine endorsements in the form of raving comments for your brand on HN.

I'd also happily endorse my Fluke multimeter, or my Mitutoyo digital calipers, or my Wiha screwdriver set. If you make great products that people like to use, people will leave positive feedback for you. This kind of endorsement is exactly what shills are trying to copy, so it does look similar.

Disclaimer: I'm yet another happy Brother owner. I love my 2380DW, which I recently bought to replace my first Brother laser (I forget the model number) that had served me well for more than a decade. That's in sharp contrast to the crappy HP inkjet I bought my first year of college, which lasted less than one semester, and my wife's several inkjets through her college days (now, obviously, she uses the Brother laser) and my parent's various inkjet struggles. Some 5 years ago, I set them up with a 2730DW, and the first service I've had to do for them was to change the wifi password a few months ago when they changed ISPs.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25008894

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24977699

Fluke and Wiha FTW!

Hah, I get that; it's spookily consistent; but I happen to have exactly the same experience.

I've gone through 3 (Epson) inkjets last decade (as I do need to print Photos - but only occasionally), and SO much consistent hassle with cleaning heads and refilling and bad prints. Meanwhile I have a Brother 2270DW for at least the last decade for regular printing and it just works. I've gone through the original small and one big toner in that period. Happy to discuss how to prove I'm not a shill :)

I regret my tone. I let cynicism get the better of me there, sorry!

To be fair I start to have the same doubts as you, I noticed a lot of recommendations for Brothers printers, seemingly out of nowhere recently.

Might be due to a couple of bad HP printers hitting the frontpage of HN recently, and people genuinely being happy with their Brothers, but it pulled my suspicion trigger as well

The truly sad part is your reaction is perfectly normal critical thinking for the age we live in. We are bombarded with lies constantly and as such I've decided I'd rather be a cynic than a perpetual victim.

Age of information, indeed. I guess I just naively assumed it'd be correct information.

I'm not shilling.

Most of the other printer manufacturers have followed the HP model to create much worse products. It's a cesspool.

Brother is one of the few left standing that hasn't taken that road and I think they should be rewarded for it.

FWIW they also sell color laser printers and I'm using one right now. It connects over the network, supports AirPrint, and just sits there quietly doing a good job. It doesn't get gummed up if it sits idle for weeks or months. The model I have even does duplex printing (printing on both sides of the page) which is quite handy. It was less than $500 when I purchased it. The official toner isn't terribly expensive and you can use cheap refills if you want to save money.

I loved Samsung laser printers mostly because they can reliably print on heavier stock than any other printer I have tried. They also were able to print peel-and-stick forms without melting the adhesive.

And then, about a year ago, their OEM toner cartridges suddenly became almost impossible to find and more expensive than the printer itself and the cheaper, third-party cartridges just don't work well at all. So, I had to reluctantly abandon Samsung. I am still looking for a good replacement.

They are modern, consumer-level, reasonably priced printers that just print, rather than pollute your computer with crapware and hassle you to be a continuous revenue stream. These days this is quite a remarkable thing.

I think printers bring out a strong reaction in many of us that paying so much for inkjet refills is an affront. Even if the absolute amount of $ isn't that much HN is generally of a demographic that doesn't want to feel trapped into overpaying for anything related to tech.

I can only speak for myself, but as someone who needed a printer for the first time in a while due to the pandemic, I bought a used brother laser printer (HL-2170W) for $20 from someone local. It's not perfect, especially with network printing from a linux client over wifi, but I was able to get it all set up and refilled the toner with a very cheap generic from Amazon. It feels like a device I "own" rather than some black box I'm renting from HP.

I don't know where the excitement around buying the new ones comes from. When I looked it was hard to find them in stock and they didn't seem particularly inexpensive.

I’m gonna get myself one and see. I’m leaning towards the comments are just authentic users excited about a quality product. I never got an uncanny valley feeling from them.

I’m just so sick of the inkjet racket and this latest HP move is the last straw.

I've written before about my laser Brother. It's not an excelent quality product, just a regular printer that doesn't extort you. And sadly this is all it takes to put a printer brand as a top value for your money, and to make a buyer happy.

This is exactly what I thought, so I have a brand new £55 Brother laser printer sitting at home, ready to be opened and tested!

I did have a cheapo Samsung laser printer many years ago, and it was great. Not sure why I reverted to bloody inkjets after that (I have two once quite expensive inkjets sitting in the corner here, sworn off).

I've had a Brother 5150D for over 10 years without problems. Some issues with Windows drivers over the years, but pretending to be a recent Brother model has always worked.

I don't have a Brother laser printer, but I do enthuse about things I like; I believe them.

(Actually I realised my label (thermal) printer is a Brother. It's ok. Works on Linux except not continuous/arbitrary length - I have to use a preset label size even though it's loaded with a continuous roll, or else it weirdly distorts flips and scales the image.)

Maybe? But their experiences do match mine. I bought a cheap Brother printer laserjet a few years ago. I needed the occasional B&W print job and plugged in the ethernet port. It worked out of the box for Debian and Windows, no special drivers needed. (I used to have to have some strange binary, but that hasn't been necessary anymore).

I don't remember the last time I exchanged out the toner cartridge (Maybe it's the first one? But I think I did have to exchange it at some point.), and it works reliably everytime I need to print. For $100, that isn't bad.

For another reference, I also bought one for my old college lab in ~2008-2009. I went back for a visit in 2019, and it was still there and it was working fine.

I get what you mean though, it seems in every printer thread the Brother recommendations have popped up.

I also have a Brother All-in-one laser printer/scanner/document feeder/duplex printer.

Everything works out of the box. Even wireless scanning, which I did not know was a thing until I got this device.

My favorite thing about Brother is they sell the same models for a few years, and then iterate on that model. It massively cuts down on manufacturing issues, number of spare parts, and being unable to web search for a problem.

Brother are the Toyota of printers. The MFC-27XX series are the Camrys.

I hope to never buy another printer brand again.

They are! We had a basic laser printer at work and even with 20 people printing everyday it rarely had issues.

Even the (5+ year old) HP laser printers are still solid. I've had a little one for 12 years and maybe change the $50 toner cartridge once a year. It would probably be less if i wasn't printing research docs to read for school.

Basically fuck ink jets. I email files to the local printer if I need a color document.

Honestly, I feel like a shill because I was not a believer.

They are expensive if you're used to cheap inkjets and have to spend $80 on a black-white laser.

if you have never dealt with a line of inkjet printers all of which try to gouge you on ink and fail just when you need them most you cannot appreciate just how big a difference a cheap laser printer from an honest and user-friendly company can make :)

I don't think they are shill accounts. I have a brother thermal printer that I have been using for years. Never needs ink, just special paper. I love the integrations it has like AirPrint and the lack of need for special drivers. After dealing with HP printers back in the day, its a breath of fresh air.

I wish the first thread I saw was this enthusiastic about Brother. I've got an HP delivering today because it sounded like the Linux driver support was more solid -- didn't see a mention of this proprietary cartridges nonsense. Mea culpa for not doing more research I guess.

The latest Brother lasers also have proprietary cartridges, but the chip that does the DRM just slides out of a slot in the cartridge and so as long as you don't discard it you can keep reusing that chip in unofficial cartridges.

With IPP (AirPrint) built into CUPS now, my Brother actually works better (has a bigger range of print options) without their drivers installed.

I've found cheap Chinese replacement cartridges on Amazon for my Brother color laser that come with the chip. Not that it's hard to move the chip over, but the price was the same as ones without the chip. Hopefully firmware updates won't break these working.

The brother drivers are junk. However there is no reason to use them - the printers are completely standard and don't need drivers. Though in some cases it is some effort to figure out how to configure the printer.

Works with airprint with no hassle either.