Dont buy lexmark

[Argo]

@smerf
 Which magazine?

[blobrana]

Hum,
Yeah i heard that too...
They've been doing that for the last year or two....
Of course they say it's to preserve the print quality/heads etc, but we all know it’s to stop them from being refilled. The solution is to use a third party cartridge, one without the ink level-monitoring chip, and refill that.

Another, aspect to the printer software connecting to the internet is the virus/hacking aspect. Anything that puts a port though a firewall, (for those who may have mistakenly done so), is a target for hacking.

But, that is tomorrows news...

[Vicked]

smerf wrote:

Anyhow I read an article in a mag the other day that lexmark and HP have put chips in their printer carts so that after you print so many pages the cart will quit working.

I assume you are talking about inkjet printers? Because I am pretty certain that they don't do that in laser printers.

[Waccoon]

Ahhhh...  good ol' Value-Added Services.  These are becoming standard practice with many types of PC drivers.

My HP printer has three background processes running at all times (Norton Antivirus has five, as well).  I still haven't figured out what they all do.

My HP printer is also a major pain to install since it does not use the Windows USB installer standard but does everything on its own.  If you plug in the printer before installing the driver, it won't ask for a driver, but will add itself into the hardware manager as an unknown device, requiring you to remove it manually to get the installer to work (otherwise, it won't see the printer at all).  I wonder how many tech support calls HP gets over their idiotic installer.

Hell in a handbasket -- that's where we're going.  And nobody seems to care.

[Argo]

@Waccoon

 Try looking up the processes here
     http://www.processlibrary.com/

[Brian Hoskins]

KennyR:

I completely agree that this kind of market research technique is completely harmless.  I think the main reason people take offense to Lexmark using this approach is because it's generally considered bad manners to "snoop" on any part of someone's computer usage whether it be innocent or not.  If they were to include a check box in their preferences program which explained the feature fully and allowed users to turn it off if they so wished, then it would probably be seen as completely acceptable.

As a rule I don't like Lexmark printers anyway.  They're primarily aimed at the cheap end of the market, and with printers it really is the case that you get what you pay for.  Skimp on your budget for a printer and you really do end up with a rubbish product.  Usually their printouts are "ok" for general usage, but as you correctly point out the cartridges don't last very long and are often expensive to replace which usually means it's cheaper to buy a new printer than a new set of cartridges, because a new printer comes with them included anyway.

If others are in the market for printers I'd also recommend to steer clear of Epson printers.  It's probably more a personal opinion issue, but I've had three Epson printers and I've not been impressed with any of them for printer performance or cost of repacement parts.

I've become quite a HP fan when it comes to printers.  I've got their 1200 series at the moment which prints A3 paper and everything.  The quality of printouts from this and other HP printers I've had is very good.

Brian

[Holley]

I've had 3 Lexmak inkjets, and their photo printing quality was just fine.  Also never had problems with refilling, and in the past when the carts were worn out I've just gone and bought another one (cheaper than a cartridge).

If they stop me from refilling I'll just take my money elsewhere, simple as that.

[mindful]

If it works for you kd7ota, then thats a good thing
Buf if you system is compromised, then you possibly know why...

[DanDude]

mindful said:

Ad-Aware does not work properly....

There were issues of version 6.  Do you have the latest installed?  Ad-Aware SE personal is the latest version out now, and so far it's working 100%.  Unfortunately, you will have to manually download since there's an error with version 6 to update it.

[DanDude]

Smerf wrote:

Anyhow I read an article in a mag the other day that lexmark and HP have put chips in their printer carts so that after you print so many pages the cart will quit working. So about refilling them forget it, it won't work

Do you have the link to this article?  I'd like to see ASAP.