I got to the point where I actually buy brother ink for my old brother printers, because it is not that expensive and I really don't want them to go out of business.

Right! I’ve got an ancient Brother myself and I feel like paying for it again, for the same reason. I recently upgraded to windows 11, downloaded the official driver and everything worked perfectly within a few minutes. They’re holding the line against BS. No, I do not want to connect to your cloud thing to print a file from my computer, thanks.

Sadly, apparently new Brother printers have moved to the crapware model.

Not mine, thankfully. I detailed that in a sibling reply.

Searched for a Brother comment to reply to - found it, thanks! :-)

I don't do a lot of printing, but when I do it's for a real need and I just want it to work. So I got another HL-L2375DW (mono full duplex laser) last year to replace my first which I gave to my ex after separation/divorce - a perfect little unit, not a trace of HP-level BS anywhere to be found. It goes to sleep with minimal power use, and wakes up when needed, even weeks or months between each use - can print straight from my Samsung phone with no extra driver install needed, as well as from PC naturally. I've just set it up on the Wifi, but it also has a network port + USB. Perfect.

It was only around 200 AUD; mind you the included toner wasn't the biggest but I only need it for occasional use so it's still going strong. I'll probably get their big drum when it eventually runs out (that's what I did with my 1st, ex printed a lot more than I) and whilst I could go 3rd party I'll just buy theirs anyway to support them in a small way.

https://www.brother.com.au/en/products/all-printers/printers...

All the shilling for Brother, both here and on Reddit, is crazy.

It seems people are reporting that Brother has stared rejecting third party ink.

Maybe there is Brother astroturfing going on, but I've had a similar excellent experience with a Brother LaserJet. It uses 3rd party toner and drums without a problem, rarely jams, prints high volume quickly, is stupid simple to install, and has no software lock.

* * *

> It seems people are reporting that Brother has stared rejecting third party ink.

This seems to be a recent development so people who bought a borther 5 or more years ago won't have run into that bs yet (like who updates their printer firmware, seriously).

So its more likely genuine users (that includes me) recommending products that have worked well for them.

I'm not very happy with my 2375. It somehow lost the wifi connection (pc doesn't see it but printer display shows online) and no amount of resetting got it back. Thank god for the USB cable...

And the drivers were acting weird even before that

Check the router? On my ubiquity unify cloud key admin I can track what devices are connected.

Also there's a test page that you can print which should detail the IP address.

It could be that the printer got new IP address and your PC is remembering the last, or something like that.

Not having AirPrint for mobile devices is a loss.

I use a pi0w with my old USB Brother and it works just fine with airprint. I update it a couple times a year but other than that it's set and forget.

There are routers with AirPlay support and USB sockets!

It’s super easy to setup CUPS to do AirPrint nowadays. I have a small container on my Proxmox box that just runs CUPS and talks to the printer over the network.

I know that’s not accessible for the tech un-savvy, but it’s there for those of us that are.

This reply is perfect, with "its super easy to setup CUPS with Proxmox" and the username matches and everything. No notes.

Another happy Brother user here. What kind of world is it where H-P is even remotely competitive with them ?