I have a HL-1440 that is old enough to still have a Centronics connector (in addition to USB1) and it's a tank. I had to take it apart once between 2008, when I got it from a university that was throwing it out, and today. It prints all my shipping labels.

Although I agree with the statement for other reasons, do you know that Brother does not do anything similar to what is reported in the article?

If you follow the link in the article to the EFF site, they basically warn that they no longer maintain a list of printers that have these dots, because every modern printer has these. Basically there are no options if you don’t want these dots.

I remember the advice to buy a brother circa 2015-2017. Apparently it has changed? Personally unsure, I just bought one, as I worked backwards from "which printer has the cheapest toner" and it is still brother.

There is no way to force the business models to keep printing on a full cartridge that has met its page limit(per reviews on Amazon), and the salesman at a store told me brothers have replaceable parts in them now besides the toner carts that they force you to replace.

Brother software has always been the worst experience for me. Its like some ancient Windows XP setup that you have to download from a 2003 website that sometimes gives errors and isnt very helpful. Uninstalling feels like Norton, where you probably need extra software to remove the crud it left behind.

Why do people waste time on any "bonus software" they found in the box with their printer?

This is why I love Brother printers: I've never had to touch their software. Ever. Been buying their printers for over a decade. You pipe postscript to them on port 9100, they print it. Done. Their software could be 100% refined APT-malware, and I'm totally okay with that.

Brother software? I bought a Brother a few months ago, no software install on any device required. I just plugged it in, and it worked. Hell I can even print from my phone to it.

The Brother software I have on Windows 10 opens an application window (as seen on the taskbar as a running app, not the system tray) that is trying to ask me to update, but there is no visible application window. I have to right click the icon and choose Exit to get rid of it.

Because HP or Lexmark or Epson or Xerox used to be great, I suppose.

They often are not any more, at least on the software side.

Also, of course, if you need to produce really great colors (think 6-color inkjets), or really large printouts (say 3' wide), your choice is narrower.