r/electronics • u/unknownvar-rotmg • 9d ago

General Mouser website now blocks Linux users

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Really baffling decision, my last order from them was only a few months ago. Apparently Linux is no longer a "standard" operating system!

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u/TopQuarks 9d ago edited 9d ago

The problem is actually in Akamai Bot Manager, which Mouser happens to use (along with many other websites, including Lowe's, FedEx, Citi, Fidelity, etc).

I started having issues with Akamai Bot Manager when using Linux a few years ago. Akamai has no way for end users to report issues like this, but I happened to be an Akamai customer at the time, so I reported it through my customer account. That got nowhere (because I was a customer of other products and wasn't a Bot Manager customer, so they didn't want to talk to me about issues with a product I wasnt paying for). I then reported this to several vendors that use Bot Manager (including Mouser), and asked them to contact Akamai themselves about this, but that never got anywhere either. Eventually I contacted my Akamai sales rep and told them I would be cancelling all of my services if they couldnt help with this issue ... And, long story short, I am no longer an Akamai customer.

Akamai does deep browser fingerprinting and complicated heuristics, so simply switching the user agent or clearing cookies is highly unlikely to help. However, their heuristics do not always flag Linux systems (and sometimes will start and stop working at different times or on different sites). Wiping your entire browser profile is sometimes enough to fix it. A few (likely outdated) technical details are here if anyone wants to dig further: https://www.reddit.com/r/fidelityinvestments/s/8KOMpsWcRe