this post was submitted on 31 May 2025
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Printers

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How to make sure my Brother MFC2710-DL printer never receives a firmware update? (jlai.lu)
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 6 days ago) by Novocirab@jlai.lu to c/printers@sh.itjust.works
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(Edit: Not sure if Brother is actually cracking down. Still, it would be nice if there is something one can do to be on the safe side for the future.) For context, Brother ~~is now also~~ might be cracking down on third-party toner. My printer is connected via LAN to my router, as I would very much like to keep it available on my home WiFi. Not sure if the printer connected to the internet, but it's rather likely. So I want to make sure, as much as is possible, that no firmware update ever gets pushed to it remotely. Is there anything specific I have to do for this? (Obviously, I will never install an update on my own initiative.)

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[–] pezhore@infosec.pub 2 points 1 week ago

I do not have my brother printer hooked up directly to my laptop, so disabling the network all together isn't an option.

I set a static IP instead of using DHCP, then purposefully gave it an invalid network gateway. Normally, a network device needs to know what gateway (IP address of a router) it needs to send traffic destined for a different network than what it currently is on - if you give it an invalid gateway, traffic cannot leave the LAN. In my case, my router is 10.0.0.1, so I set my gateway on the printer to 10.0.0.254.

You could also try to mess with the DNS settings, but if Brother is smart, they'll be hard coding IP addresses for their update servers.