HP only made things worse for itself by demanding at the time that it was only watching out for the safety and security of its customers while petting itself on the back for staying pro-active about approaching a problem it caused only after a huge consumer backlash happened.
Fast forward about exactly one year, and it seems like HP hasn’t gathered much from the Keurig-esque activity. The organization this week released a new software update for the company’s OfficeJet 6800 series, OfficeJet Pro 6200 series, OfficeJet Pro X 450 series, and OfficeJet Pro 8600 series printers. One of the major “advantages” of the update? Printer cartridges from competing companies no longer work. Again:
According to News, a new firmware update for HP Officejet printers published yesterday appears to be equal to the reviled DRM update published exactly one year ago. When you try to use third-party ink later installing the new/old firmware, you possibly run into an error that says “One or more cartridges seem to be damaged. Remove them and return with new cartridges.” Depending on how common cartridges your specific printer uses, it may be desirable to insert one or two out getting an error. But it looks when all of the ink cartridge slots are filled up, the information message will be displayed again.
Just like a year ago, this limitation is being foisted upon customers under the guise of a security update, powered by a set HP calls its “Dynamic Security” platform. Fortunately, customers have several paths to avoid buying with this nonsense. Customers can go to the HP support website and download an alternative firmware without the Dynamic Security platform embedded something that HP grasps most users won’t do, and which puts the onus for remedying HP’s bad code on the end user. Users then have to block HP’s automated update functionality to stop this firmware from being placed automatically at the cost of useful updates.
There’s apparently an easier, more elegant solution: stop buying HP printers until the organization realizes that killing device functionality beneath the pretense of security is annoying.
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