Lexmark drivers; always have to connect to the internet!?

[Oh SoS]

This is seriously pissing me off...not only does the background "service" always attempt to connect to the internet upon startup, but another lexmark program attempts to connect every time I print! Of course disabling the service and/or blocking the internet connection results in an "unable to communicate" error message, which I know is BS because it's a USB printer.
Upon install, I told them I DID NOT want to participate in their "statistics collection."
What the hell is this crap?

I fear I will lose all scanning functionality if I completely uninstall all the mystery software they put on.

The model I have is a 8350.

...any suggestions?

 

[Oh SoS]

I did find this article on their website...
http://support.lexmark.com/cgi-perl/knowledgebase.cgi?ccs=229:1:0:516:0:0&framed=&docid=ENUS5004&relevance=0

However, this program isn't even on my system!

These are the 4 programs that have attempted to connect to the internet:
lxcjaiox.exe
lxcjmon.exe
lxcjcoms.exe
lxcjpswx.exe

If I block them w/ my firewall, or disable the background service entirely, then it won't print.
This is incredibly stupid.

 

[Agent Blue]

The programs you listed are not associated with their "statistics collection" stuff. They are related to communicating with the printer, and are actually only talking amongst themselves and/or trying to talk to the printer to send the print job to it. Unfortunately, on this product Lexmark chose to handle that sort of communication using sockets (even when connected via USB), and so what your firewall is seeing is only port traffic over the local network, even though it reports it to you as attempts to access "the internet". Blame that lack of level of detail on your firewall software.

And I agree it is incredibly stupid to hit a firewall just when printing over USB, which is why newer Lexmark products don't have this problem (they fixed it).

 

[Guest]

They also allow the exceptions for thier spyware too and it's not clear which are for the printer functionality and which for thier loging and reporting application. I just bought my lexmark and yes it's a lower end model but it fairly new. I Think they like the fact that they can just tell Joe end user "Oh your firewall or Norton security doohicky" is blocking your printer alow anything that says lexmark or turn it off. Also the option to stop nagging you to register (via a detailed marking survey with your contact and personal information that must go nicely with your IP addres and printing habits) dosen't work. But hey you get a loud vioce the anounces "printing started" and "Printing Complete" and errors such as when thier kill chip to exclude 3rd party cartrage manufacturers hoses whole batches of thier own carts from mexico. But hey not like they would recall them or anything. Also don't think your going to run out of ink without them knowing about it and offering to ship out more, and don't think your buying ink from anyone but them what do think this is some type of competing free market or somthing. But hey all those chips are copyrighted , no not patented , they are copyrighted. A novel , a Movie , that new album you bought and um your ink cartrage all creative works of intellectual property isn't that neat ! So who cares if it dosen't work right and nags you , while their faux driver is geting taged by all your spyware apps. As for their reporting app well I chose not to participate and found myself connected to thier site via an open port , sure it shows up as HTTP but it's also thier IP address on the other end. must be a bug like when I tell it not to try to force me to register everytime before I can print something. How about they just write a driver , that prints , not some app the hooks your system files , talks to you like a robot and throws up a bunch of BS in the middle of the screen to click through if it works more than 10 times and dosen't try to hose your Vista install. How about I hit CTL+P click ok and walk over to get my print job, whats wrong with that Lexmark ? My Lexmark made a great sound when it hit the inside of the dumpster kind of entertianing but not worth the $80 I thought I was paying to buy a printer.