www.makemkv.com

I see a lot of discussion (and entire forum boards) devoted to flashing firmware onto drives. I'm a bit confused as I've been using MakeMKV for a while now, first with an external DVD drive, and more recently with an external BD drive, and I haven't needed to flash the firmware to make use of them.

Have I just been getting exceptionally lucky with the random-ass-drives I've been buying from Amazon UK, that they work out of the box? What am I missing?

If you aren't trying to read UHD disks, "random-ass-drives" should be fine.

It's only with UHD that things get weird, because you have hardware compatibility (no drives prior to 2015 can read them, and not many 2015 drives can) and software limitations (drive can read it, but won't without certain software).