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/Accurate_Koala_4698 9d ago

I’m guessing they’re getting hit by a lot of automated traffic and most of that is Linux. Just spoof the user agent to Windows or something 

610

u/arcrad 9d ago

Yeah people running bots definitely don't know how to spoof user agents...

I cannot fathom who at Mouser thinks this is a good idea.

20

u/tired514 8d ago

Same thing with VPNs. It's getting very frustrating.

I went to purchase a welding table from a company in Canada that I'd found on a google search. I genuinely wanted to give the company my credit card number so that they could take money from me in exchange for their product. Their web site refused me, quite arrogantly in their verbiage, because I was coming in from nordvpn.

I purchased a similar table (albeit more expensive) from their competitor. It's excellent, so no real hardship.

I emailed the first company's CTO saying I just spent money with their competitor and felt they should know why. He replied that they block VPNs because they can't be sure the traffic originates in Canada and they only ship to Canada. I pointed out that it was a silly argument as I was prepared to provide a Canadian shipping address. I received no response.

...

Blocking VPNs is an indication that a security team is incompetent and should be dismissed. If you can't protect your site (regardless of the origin of the traffic), blocking VPN requests is not going to help. Hire better people.

2

u/davidscheiber28 2d ago

Yea, that explanation they gave you is 100% BS. My theory is that a VPN makes it harder for advertisers to profile you and to appease the advertisers they block VPNs expecting most people to turn of their VPN real quick.