Printer manufacturers have spent years trying to “force” users to only use their official cartridges when using their devices, this in most cases is not legal, and in the past it has resulted in financial penalties, but it seems that HP does not care, since in its latest software update of its printers it has caused these to be blocked when official brand ink is not used.
The issue of printer ink cartridges is already controversial in itself, since generally they have a very high price. This causes users to search for the cheapest possible product, which seems to annoy the manufacturers of these products.
And it is that as it has been commented in a thread of Reddit, while in the HP Support Forum, the last software update of the printers of that brand blocks the use of any cartridge it detects as unofficial.
“The indicated cartridges have been blocked by the printer firmware because they use an unofficial HP chip. This printer is designed to work only with new or reused cartridges that use a new or reused chip from HP.” says the message that appears to those affected.
The truth is that it is not the first time that something like this has happened, in 2016 the case occurred PrinterGatein which basically the same thing happened and brands like HP itself had to compensate each of the users with 150 euros for this illegal blocking of third-party brand cartridges.
And it is that as previous sentences have marked, users are free to use any brand of cartridge in their printers, no matter what manufacturer they are from. Many times these companies hide behind safety recommendations and warnings when it comes to a cartridge other than the company’s software, but in theory these are recommendations, which you can ignore and continue printing with the ink you want.
At the moment HP has not ruled on the matter, so we do not know if the blocking of the printer is an error or if HP does not care about being penalized. In turn, we also do not know if this software update is worldwide or specific to some countries, for now we know that there are affected users in the US and also in the United Kingdom.
