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Printer Makers Are Crippling Cheap Ink Cartridges Via Bogus 'Security Updates' (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Printer maker Epson is under fire this month from activist groups after a software update prevented customers from using cheaper, third party ink cartridges. It's just the latest salvo in a decades-long effort by printer manufacturers to block consumer choice, often by disguising printer downgrades as essential product improvements. For several decades now printer manufacturers have lured consumers into an arguably-terrible deal: shell out a modest sum for a mediocre printer, then pay an arm and a leg for replacement printer cartridges that cost relatively-little to actually produce.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation now says that Epson has been engaged in the same behavior. The group says it recently learned that in late 2016 or early 2017, Epson issued a "poison pill" software update that effectively downgraded user printers to block third party cartridges, but disguised the software update as a meaningful improvement. The EFF has subsequently sent a letter to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, arguing that Epson's lack of transparency can easily be seen as "misleading and deceptive" under Texas consumer protection laws. "When restricted to Epson's own cartridges, customers must pay Epson's higher prices, while losing the added convenience of third party alternatives, such as refillable cartridges and continuous ink supply systems," the complaint notes. "This artificial restriction of third party ink options also suppresses a competitive ink market and has reportedly caused some manufacturers of refillable cartridges and continuous ink supply systems to exit the market."
The Electronic Frontier Foundation now says that Epson has been engaged in the same behavior. The group says it recently learned that in late 2016 or early 2017, Epson issued a "poison pill" software update that effectively downgraded user printers to block third party cartridges, but disguised the software update as a meaningful improvement. The EFF has subsequently sent a letter to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, arguing that Epson's lack of transparency can easily be seen as "misleading and deceptive" under Texas consumer protection laws. "When restricted to Epson's own cartridges, customers must pay Epson's higher prices, while losing the added convenience of third party alternatives, such as refillable cartridges and continuous ink supply systems," the complaint notes. "This artificial restriction of third party ink options also suppresses a competitive ink market and has reportedly caused some manufacturers of refillable cartridges and continuous ink supply systems to exit the market."
There needs to be a 0 tolerance law for stuff like that. If your company is found to be pulling shit like this you're on the hook to provide all customers with free cartridges, for life and the current executives all go to prison for a year.
It's an update to protect the security of their revenue stream, duh!
Same business model.
Demand to be able to take a big load of money for something that cost you next to nothing to make,
"because" it cost them a lot more to make the basis for it than you had to pay the first time.
It is "justified" by the base logic, that taking someone's money without giving something back is somehow not stealing, if you also exchange a bit of money that you *do* give something back for.
(Aka profit being "not stealing" because a fraction of the money taken was earned too.)
But with the extension that the above excuse is used, to steal money for *forever*. (Currently life+90 years. Extended forevet, each time Disney wants it.)
I personally don't like the potential carcinogens that are in toner, although I'm sure inkjets are not much healthier there would seem to be less risk without a laser heating/vaporizing nanoparticles that could easily become airborn and penetrate deep into one's lungs.
What's really disappointing is that it's 2018 and I haven't heard any significant improvement in print density in the past two decades, and yet here we are every year the printer companies come out with new models with form factors especially for the ink and toner supply, and none of these printers are readily end user serviceable with available replacement parts.
I'd love to see a printer designed to operate for several decades, where the whole line uses the same ink or toner modules. It's kind of surprising in this era of kickstarters and innovators operating out of garages that the printer industry hasn't been upended by a community of standardized components that are open and have multiple sources.
I havr been told laser printers make inferior picture prints.
But since I doubt professional industry-grade printing firms prit their photos on inkjet printers.
So what't the deal with that?
And I also see no reason why laser printer pigments would have to be inferior.
Every once in a while we have an electronics recycling in our area, and they took a count of how many printers they got that were still functional, and it turned out to be about 65%; about 85% of those they could “resale” (meaning they had power cord, etc enough to make them usable, sans new ink). They tried to give them to the local thrift shops, but they usually refuse them because they already have too many of them to try to sell. So they end up in landfills.
So now the local towns are thinking of putting restrictions on the sale of those types of printers.
AC comments get piped to
Charging massively over inflated prices for new ink cartridges is just part of their environment friendly campaign. People will get so feed up with paying ridiculous amounts of money for the 'official' replacements compared to the cheap versions that they can no longer use that they will just stop using printers all together. It's a win-win for the environment!
You don't know what the fuck you are talking about.
It is obvious you've never printed *any* HDR photography -- let alone portraits -- on both inkjets and color laser printers. The difference is substantial up close. Professional, and consumers, use ink jets to get the best quality for photos on premium photo paper such as 8, 10, and 12 ink systems.
i.e.
* Laser printers are awesome for text but OK for photographs such as their inability to produce artifact free gradients due to the toner when placed being basically fine dots on paper,
* Inkjet printers are OK for text (slightly blurry) but phenomenal for photographs due to their higher gamut coverage and "area bleeding" producing smooth gradients.
Myself and others have both because you want to use the right tool for the job that gives the best quality.
And I mean real capitalism, not the fake stuff the nationalists talk about.
If you buy something, you have the right to modify it, repair it, and use it with other people's products. That is what OWNING it means. If you want to rent stuff instead of sell, that's fine, but you don't have the right to rent it while pretending you are selling it.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I remember when my Mom found out I didn't have a printer a decade or so ago and she treated it like I was going through some sort of financial hardship like when my parents found out around the same period that I didnt have cable TV anymore. Sure enough I got a printer for that years Christmas that still sits in a closet in its original packaging.
Fortunatly people are coming around on how worthless printers are now and what a price gouge they have always been. These companies are just hastening their own demise with this crooked shit
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
What's especially annoying with liquid dye printers is that you KNOW that the great majority of users don't use them regularly, so the ink dries out or the inevitable head cleaning uses up a significant portion of the ink, and the price per page becomes ridiculous. Printer companies *know* this -- it's part of their business plan.
For mothers and mothers-in-law, I recommend mid-level color laser printers. The quality is Good Enough for printing facebook photos to tack on the wall, the toner cartridges last a long time, and they never dry out. It's fairly easy to make this case financially, especially to someone frustrated with how much it's costing, and how much they have to dink with the hardware, just to print pictures of their grandkids.
I do photography, but I outsource all my printing. When customers order prints from my website, an outside service does the actual printing and delivery. For ad-hoc printing, I sneaker-net a thumb drive over to some place that can print it for me. And recently, with grocery store chains and drug store chains buying the same Epson roll printers that used to be found only in professional print services, it doesn't really matter who does your printing, if you do your own color correction and don't need special paper.
In the rare instance I need art gallery level printing, I'm not going to do that at home anyway. I'm going to upload my image to a professional print service and either will-call it or have it shipped to me.
The POINT being, there's NO REASON TO OWN A DAMNED DYE-BASED PRINTER and a whole lot of reasons NOT to own one.
Or if you're going to buy one of the stupid things, buy the printer on sale, and when the demo cartridges run out, THROW THE WHOLE PRINTER AWAY and buy another printer on sale. E-waste be damned. Tell the manufacturers to adopt a less wasteful business model.
Let's all as consumers stop acting like battered wives, shall we? Stop playing the game, and the game will change.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Had a color inkjet about a decade ago. Got a monochrome laser printer shortly thereafter. All the photos I once printed now go to the high quality Internet photograph printers. No real need for color, and no real need for the inkjet trash.
Guess what printer I will not be buying in the future...
There is nobody on the right side of this.
You have manufacturers that are willing to take advantage of consumer's greedy nature. Then you have consumers that think they can get something for nothing.
The only solution is if you don't like it don't buy crappy printers. I know I got good value out of my LaserJet II that finally died last year. It was so nice I was more than willing to do my own repair work on it.
Inkjet printers use liquid that spreads out just a bit after it's placed. Laser printers use a solid pigment that stays exactly where it is placed, giving a sharper image.
Text is good sharp. Portraits and most other photography isn't supposed to have sharp, crisp lines between different colors. Photos are best with a softer transition between colors.
I quit buying printers after too many manufacturers started doing this nonsense - up next is quitting all tv if atsc3 (internet required) broadcast standard is accepted
Which have the exact same issues.
And this is what bothers me, that devices are almost always now set to autoupdate with no option to prevent it. I had a rooted Kindle Fire that was relocked in this manner.
I wonder how many people are writing anti virus-type software that can do a heuristics check on these "updates", perhaps forcing it into a 'cage' and only 'releasing' it if it does not contain any malicious 'features'. Maybe this could be done on the router level, provided it has enough onboard flash memory, I dunno, but this looks like a huge, unfulfilled need.
For a while I was doing FIOS local channels when I could get them without a cable box on my QAM-capable television. A few months ago they started to change from QAM to another system, channel-by-channel, then they raised the price of local-only by $10 a month. That's when I dumped TV, and I haven't missed the incessant commercials.
I've tried aftermarket cartridges a few times. They seem to be o.k. for a while but inevitably they clog the print head.
Cleaning the head is usually an endless cycle of "clean print head/check print head" attempts that just consume ink like crazy. I have tried removing the head and cleaning it with no success. Once clogged the printer is history.
Had one once. What a piece of shit it was too.
Software kept saying that it was trying to install SCSI driver even though it was USB.
Wouldn't scan without the ink cartridge installed. Should have taken it back then.
Came with 4x6 paper. Tried printing, got a tiny picture in the center. WTF? Tried convincing it to fill the 4x6 and ended up printing four pages with one quarter of the image on each. Trash.
Never tried to print anything else. Scanner was mainly what I needed anyway.
Scanner quit. I wrote tech support a detailed description of the problem and what I tried. Got a response that told me that they never read it. "Is it plugged in?".
I later got a survey asking how their customer service was. I gave zero out of ten on everything and that was generous. The last part asked how they could do better next time. I said there won't be a next time. I will never buy Epson again, and I'll tell anyone who will listen that Epson hardware/software/support is garbage.
Is it still true that Canon inkjet printers don't have DRM-style ink cartridges like Epson?
Because the last time I read about it, Canon was the last refill-friendly printer company out there.
#DeleteFacebook
I have a Samsung colour laser. 3rd-party toner carts working fine, just added a new set and was using them for a month or so... then for some reason an update got through to the printer and it suddenly started complaining I had non-compliant cartridges. Motherf#$#ers. I had to shell out $450 for a whole set of official toners (black, C/Y/M/K) as the wife had a big project coming up.
Never again, Samsung/HP. I suspect the HP acquisition drove this dick move. Will avoid both brands forever and tell everyone who asks never to buy them either.
Just an FYi, buy a router that supports fixed IP addresses based on MAC ID and programmable address range filters, then give your printer a fixed IP address and setup a rule or rules to block all not local network adresses to and from your printer address.
" If it ain't broke, don't fix it " still applies . . . .
. . . though in the electronics ( especially the computer ) world it should probably read " If it's working fine, don't upgrade it lest you break it "
BIGLY ur fucked mates!
Don't like it? Buy something else. Oh, there is no alternative? Too bad (snicker).
Inkjet inks are tuned to the printheads where they are jetted. There is a great deal of complexity in getting it right and
reliable. I work on the problem every day.
Current inkjet systems are good and unimaginably productive. Color at speed continues to get better. What is limiting
some of the artistry is that there is no good file format for very high density large images. Big inkjet prints 10,000,000
pixels per linear inch. Last Halloween I printed a single image that was 3 trillion pixels. When I tell the graphic arts guys
to get me a few trillon+ pixel images they just blubber and tell me Photoshop cannot handle it. Grow up!
Ink formulation is critical for good consistent results.
I wonder why nobody is talking about the epson eco tank printers. They are inkjets and instead of the cartridge, the use a tank which can be filled with original and super cheap Epson inks. They cost about 10 USD for thousands of pages.
I used mid-level colour laser printers it's really good, I m not facing any printer problem. If I face a problem I solved my issue with this site https://www.brotherprintersupp...
Exactly my sentiment. Security Update where Ads suddenly appears on Win10. Yep, that's security update right there.
These types of updates could be against the law in EU or other western countries like UK and Canada.
These "Security Updates" are actually "Cripple Updates". Reminds me of WGA update in Win XP days, doing nothing but checking if you have a valid copy of XP.
You downloaded it, which costs bandwidth, and then it keeps on popping up telling you to activate, this just costs some man-hours in huge companies.
"fags"? Oy vey, that's homophobic, you bigot!
I don't think you can fight this sort of human nature though. I have a cheap espresso machine at home. To make a coffee, I put two scoops into the portafilter, press it down, stick it into the machine and turn the knob to push the water through. 30s later I have espresso. To clean, I take the portafilter off and smack it on the top of the rubbish bin.
How on earth it is considered better or easier to use a capsule machine is beyond me, yet millions of consumers choose to become enslaved to those expensive little non-biodegradable pods every year. It is just the way humans work. If anything it is the scourge of middle class apathy - the same thing that is causing many of the problems with our politics right now.
is needed which mandates display of: (a) ability to use third party parts; (b) ability to use third party repair shops. This should apply to any product that has an expected life of more than one month. The minimum prominence of the display (size, positioning, etc) should be specified. This should also apply to marketing, including web sites.
Once consumers start to notice this they will start to make buying decisions on this information. This will make manufacturers change. It might mean that it costs more to buy a printer, but cost over a few years should go down.
IT product review/comparison web sites could help with the problem today: Include these 2 data points in every review/comparison.
What the printer manufacturers are doing is just the same as John Deere does with tractors.
How about a "DIY-printer kit" that gets you a black-and-white PostScript printer that doesn't dry out and you can make (or have your enterprising kid or cousin make) using a 3d printer (at the local makerspace) and maybe some other easily sourced parts. Make sure it's easy to build, easy to maintain, and has very low maintenance (doesn't dry out, etc.), parts are cheap and so are supplies. Preferrably, make the thing nice and compact, too.
I don't expect it to ever be quite as cheap up front as the consumerist stuff designed and built in bulk in so many models it's no longer funny. But the crowd that looks a little further and notices the total cost of running the thing for years (my dad still uses a deskjet 500, no C), might very well be interested in a thing they might build themselves, and the only cost to you is designing the thing for a hobby.
I personally mostly print letters, others print mostly pictures. If the printers are small and cheap enough, why not have one of each? You can always do a combined model later. Don't want too many different models, or at least, not too many different ways of feeding them.
The thing is that the open source designs and build instructions exist somewhere and that people work on them. Next you'll want to document not just how to build them, maintain them, and so on, but also what the expected lifetime is, where to get or how to make supplies, and all that. None of this is as easy as it seems, but it might be a worthwhile experiment for the enterprising maker.
On a related note: Can anyone explain just why so many different (toner and ink) cartridge formats exist? Practically I'd say you'd need two or three sizes of each technology, not the 300+ we have.
Dude, that was 2 months ago. Get over it already.
After that experience I always use chipless cartridges and I will never buy Epson under any circumstances. The reality is that printers do not need to put microchips on a cart for any technical reason - an optical sensor is far more reliable. It's simply an anti-consumer, anti-competitive move. I'm kind of surprised the EU doesn't force this issue, possibly even forcing printers to adopt some standard cartridge sizes while they're at it to stop this BS.
REPENT ANYTIME NAZI SCUMBAGS. I might even forgive you. Will God? Unknown. But you won't know unless you repent, lying nazi scum. NO QUARTER FOR NAZI PROPAGANDISTS LIKE RAY MORRIS.
Lol. There he is again, the guy I was talking about last week. Apparently he thinks I'm white, based on the fact that I'm honest enough to link to the government's own official statements about their policies.
all around. Privacy is on, Right to repair by John-Deere f'ing farmers, consumers all around getting f'd.
What else?
- Google forcing location services to be turned on for Wifi and Bluetooth functions? Evil
- Windows 10 and other msoft products forced telemetry? Evil
- Forced subscription software (Adobe, etc)? Evil
- Msoft forcing you to identify yourself to buy office? Evil
- Samsung and other TV Privacy policies? Evil
- Hell, even Roomba maps your house. Don't like it? They issue a threat like some other companies: then you can't use advanced features on the expensive product you paid for.
Companies dictating to and f'ing customers is getting old.
Iâ(TM)ve hacked a few Epsons with Rihac inklink inkwells.
Some people do a fairly heavy amount of printing and generally speaking these units hack the printer into thinking that the inkwell system is a legitimate set of ink cartridges.
Refill the inkwells when needed and keep printing.
We know all the brands try to prevent third party cartridges. HP being the worst.
Never update the firmware on your printer!
So called security updates just try to block the hacks.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
As an aside, it's interesting to see the relatively large number of comments this thread has attracted already. That strongly suggests that this is a widespread concern or issue.
In the summer of 2016 I purchased an HP OfficeJet 8100 printer. Relatively fast print speed, duplex printing, offered as an "office printer", able to handle reasonable workloads, but with longevity and long term reliability in mind. Worked perfectly up until earlier this year. Only ever used 100% original HP inks.
Earlier this year (March?) Microsoft shipped a major update to Windows 10 that nuked my Windows build and forced a clean OS re-installation. By the time I got to installing the printer driver, I was so tired that I mistakenly agreed to activating the "phone home" feature of the software part of the driver. Within a day the printer died, with the diagnostics complaining of a print head failure.
I've done a lot of hardware maintenance in my time, on equipment far more delicate than a print head. I stripped the head from the printer, cleaned it, put it all back together but this made no difference. The printer had been bricked, remotely. The bricking happened the moment I connected my printer software to the internet. Coincidence? I think not. There was *nothing* wrong with the print head.
This is a long-standing tactic of these companies. It's about time a consumer watchdog took them to task. Better, it's about time a government prosecuted them for it. It's about time a few company directors did some serious jail time for fraud.
Maybe it's time to put together an open-source approach to printing and break monopolies?
Take your meds already, you sad sack. Don't make us have to retract your internet licence.
I have two HP printers. Both were bought second hand as demo units: a very old LaserJet 2300dn and an OfficeJet PRO 8610dn. I refurbished the LaserJet myself. I've been using HP office printers at home for more than 15 years, as they pretty much work out-of-the-box with Linux, and there is a mature 3rd party ink/toner industry.
A couple of years ago a firmware "update" was pushed out which disabled them both from using 3rd party ink. Users made a huge fuss and generated a lot of bad publicity, particularly from the small business community. HP folded and issued a firmware update. Now you get a warning about 3rd party ink/toner, which you can dismiss with a button push. In the case of the laser it is 3 buttons at once.
If Epson are trying the same trick, then the bad publicity should make them think again. The HP story should also be resurrected, and maybe others will also think twice. This sort of business model should be outlawed. As other commenters have said, if you buy a piece of hardware, then you OWN it!
Best wishes,
Sid
In an age where we all have a supercomputer in our pockets, do people really still print things out on paper for everyday use?
Well I guess the answer is YES. And FUCK YES, especially at my local grocery store, which prints a massive 12-foot long receipt for just a few grocery items. Oh and I get more junk mail than ever. The amount of paper we waste is astonishing, but this is not because consumers want this, it's due to corporations flooding consumers with this crap. Oh, and would you believe that about 15 years ago when I was just starting out as an engineer, people used to PRINT OUT their source code and bring these massive stacks of papers to peer reviews? In addition to that, someone would have a projector displaying the same source code and we would all review it together. We don't do that now, but man WTF were we thinking?
I recently tried selling a generic brand, unused toner cartridge for an HP printer I no longer owned on the classifieds site kijiji. It was taken down within a day for a "Verified Rights Owner (VeRO)" complaint. In no point in the add did I try to pass it off as a genuine HP cartridge, and the picture I used to post it certainly made clear who's sticker it had on it. I did mention it was for HP printers, which I seemed relevant. I tried pushing back, but was told that any reference to "HP" would result in take down. I guess I'm back to boycotting HP.
Are there any printer manufacturers that aren't evil?
Is it any surprise that a printer started RMS on his holy crusade? Too bad it seems we are losing that that battle so completely.
I'm the sysadmin for a 300-employee academic department at a university. I got buy-in from my department chair and IT committee to do this:
- No new inkjet printers. Keep buying consumables for existing ones, but I'm not repairing them.
- Exceptions are 13" or wider carriages and specific uses, like media not widely available for lasers (lab glassware labels). Our graphic artist had a 13" inkjet and two 60" inkjets.
- No aftermarket toner. I'll pay the few dollars extra for OEM toner, as I've vacuumed spilled toner out of way too many printers when someone decided to "experiment" with cheap aftermarket toner.
I no longer recommend inkjet printers for home use, even if Grandma only prints a few times a month. Laser.
Should be using toner and laser printers.
Even if you want to cheap out on printing, you're better off buying a monochrome laser and sending the occasional photo print order to Snapfish when needed. Even if you need color, color lasers have now come down dramatically in price.
Bonus: toner cartridges don't dry out, so if you don't print every day you no longer need to waste most of your liquid ink running the Deep Clean utility to unclog the heads.
One benefit of the "inkjet scam" is that because the printers themselves are often sold at a loss and include a scanner, you can generally get an all-in-one printer for a fraction of the cost of just a flatbed scanner.
I personally use a laser printer for all my printing needs (that itself was a dirt-cheap closeout model for $40 but I've still not exhausted the included toner cartridge), but my inkjet printer I paid $18 for brand new and its never even printed a single sheet. I literally only use it as a document scanner. It's not a stellar scanner but it serves that purpose just fine.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
The printer companies have been screwing the consumer since day 1. That said, I haven't had or created a print job in well over a decade, so I no longer care what kind of crappy stunts they try to pull. My employer won't go so far as to eliminate printers but they also haven't bought a new printer in well over five years and the ones around the office usually has the toner dry up from lack of use which is found by the "one guy".
I happen to own an Epson printer (which I just bought new ink for). Is there a way to know if my printer has been known to show this behavior before I install the new ink cartridges? I looked at the filing on the EFF page but it didn't list specific printers.
While one solution to the problem would be "throw the printer away and buy one from some other company", I'd prefer a solution that does not involve spending more money - after all, reduced consumer cost was supposed to be part of the goal here wasn't it?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Other than professionals, I don't see the need for anyone to own an inkjet anymore. Color laser printers can now be had for CRAZY CHEAP: I bought myself a Xerox 6500n 4 or 5 years back for around $150 US and LOVE it! The thing is still running on it's "starter" toner packs (but is starting to whine about them being low the last year, so I bought some more starter toners for when it actually runs out.) The drawback is that sometimes the toner cartridges can be crazy expensive (for mine they are like double the price I paid for the printer itself), but many do accept 3rd party ones and since the toner doesn't become unusable if you're an occasional printer, they last for years.
Stop using inkjet printers, they're trash unless you need photo printing. Laser printers are faster, more efficient, and cheaper in the long run... toner doesn't dry out like ink cartridges and printer manufacturers wouldn't risk alienating core business customers in such a competitive market by trying to pull this crap on laser printers. Color laser printing has advanced to the point that it's entirely adequate for everything short of desktop photo printing at reasonable prices. There's really no reason to use an inkjet anymore unless you're printing exclusively photos.
So you think the TX Attorney General would do something that hurts corporate profits? ha ha ha ha
My last inkjet was used 5 years ago.
For general printing and for making Printed Circuit Boards, I still use my faithful HP LaserJet 1100 series printer C4224A, manufactured in November, 1998 and perfectly functional up to today. Can you believe I purchased this printer in the Pentium III era? Twenty years ago and still printing just like the first day.
To the hell with Inkjets!
I have simply been burned too many times by purchasing the "more expensive models which would be cheaper in the long run". They are NEVER cheaper in the long run. Now I just buy a new printer whenever I run out of ink/toner/liquid money. Whatever is the least expensive.
Do you mean that the 'evil' Donald Trump became President, when the entire Jewish media told you he was going to lose? Aaaahhhhh....
I have an Epson inkjet printer I use at home for infrequent printing of mostly B&W documents. Much to my dismay a few weeks ago, the printer refused to print a standard Word document because it was claiming the cyan cartridge was out. I had no color in the document and couldn't find a way around it locking out all printing until I replaced it. Further, once I did replace the cyan, it printed 1 B&W document and then shutdown again, claiming yellow was out. It seems Epson has a time-expiration on their cartridges, even if ink is still in them, and refuses to work until you feed the beast. Needless to say, when the printer dies, either naturally or by baseball bat, I won't be buying Epson again.
Screen Printer here! Laser doesn't work on transparent 13x19 sheets, and I need to print those daily:) Whats even more annoying is that even though I have everything set to black and white, and I literally only print black - my color ink cartridges run out a little faster than the black ones on my canon printer. Sneaky bastards.
Wax printers > all