What printer phones home the least?

I have had it with HP printers! That thing is driving me nuts, phoning home all the time and running what seems to be a gazillion programs. And I am not even printing anything!

Is there a printer that does just what a printer should: print when I want it to and otherwise remain silent? I do not mind an occasional update (or even manual updates I can check myself) but HP is way overboard. My Snoopfree telling me my HP printer is reading my screen every start-up does not help matters any.

Any suggestions?

 

Hello,
Never had ET problems with any printer, be they HP, Canon, Epson, or Lexmark.
You could try Canon?
Mrk

 

Are you referring to the actual printer (program) phoning home or the MS "Print Spooler"? The Print Spooler is native to the OS and must be running if you have a printer attached, how ever, it does not generally need Internet access and can be blocked at the firewall. As far as printer programs that load and run at start-up. It varies from printer to printer if they are needed to run all the time or can be started manually when a job is sent to the printer.

 

Have two HP Printers, both using HP Drivers w/Toolboxes and they have never even asked to 'Phone Home'.

One has been around for five years and through four PC's and second is six months old.

It could be that w/install of the HP Software that the optional 'ink-minder' feature was enabled.

You can often run HP Printers from a generic Windows HP Driver, but it is usually better to use the HP Supplied Drivers.

 

I have a PSC 1510 and it doesn't phone home.

The reason is that I don't have HP software installed, it's not Vista ready yet, lol. All functions work within Vista using Photo Gallery or Fax and Scan. I do miss the app that tells you how much ink is left, though.

 

I only installed the printer driver and nothing else.
Only when I need to check ink levels I have to temporarily install the printer utility software.