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Microsoft to kill off third-party printer drivers in Windows
(www.theregister.com)
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this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2023
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Doesn’t that mean they just need to move their bullshit into the printer firmware rather than in their driver bloat software?
Or if they decide not to use the standard drivers and keep things customer-hostile, maybe their printer won’t work at all without their own software package.
I’m in the Brother laser printer gang, so I don’t know how egregious they are with this stuff already.
Depend which bullshit you mean. If you mean the no ink no scan, yes they can move it to the printer. If you mean the you stop the subscription, we disable your cartridge even if they aren't empty, it will be difficult.
If the user uses usb, the printer will face the microsoft owned driver. If you uses it through lan, it will be able to communicate with HP's servers.
Then I guess, it could be done through usb too, like sending settings to the printer.
Maybe they could require a wifi connection back to the mothership before the printer itself will do any printing. Or just say fuck it and ship their printers with wifi/ethernet only.
Hopefully the consumer market wouldn’t let them get away with that crap, but on a technical level I have to think there are so many ways to mess with it. Just look at all the other enshittification going on around us.
They could do it, just removing usb port. I dont doubt they will find a solution. Who knows maybe they will just bribe Microsoft.