@post#24
Are you using Chrome ?
Yes. I have also noticed problems with various sites.
@post #20
I have noticed this practice of linking to an external resource has become much more common in the past few years, and it is quite annoying. Especially when every vendor under the sun demands you set up an account, login, agree to their spam and so on, when all you're trying to do is see if the part will do what you need. And sometimes the link just brings you to a product listing or similar, and you still have to drill down and click a few links to find the actual datasheet. It's definitely much more convenient having the PDF directly on the store page, even if it's a bit out of date or whatever.
Exactly. The link to Panasonic insisted that I agree to its cookies. I always check to see what that entails. It is annoying and is not a question of where to click, "yes."
That is particularly annoying when I am working on a design and may want to check a half dozen or so products. An extreme example was an RF receiver module where the manufacturer required an NDA to access its datasheet, which it would not provide to an individual. In other words, I could buy the product from DigiKey, but not get its datasheet. Albeit, that's an extreme example from a few years ago, but its memory is still alive. Simply put, I expect DigiKey to offer more product information than Amazon does.
Why my rant here? In April 2022, I tried to contact DigiKey to give feedback about its website and search engine. There was no obvious way to do that. So, I filed a "return request" for a recent order knowing that would open a dialog. That did happen, and the dialog seemed to be constructive. The final response from DigiKey was,
Please accept my apologies for any inconvenience and frustration our web site has caused you recently. I have forwarded your concerns to our IT Department to take a look at. They will contact you in a separate email to try and determine why you are having these issues, and/or what may be wrong with our search feature. We appreciate your feedback on this.
There has been no follow up from DigiKey. Of course, maybe it is all Chrome related, but that is still a popular browser.
My most recent orders have been to Mouser, which is also where I got the datasheet I wanted. I have always been fond of DigiKey since living in Minnesota and worry that DigiKey is losing sight of what made it so successful. It used to provide the absolute best service and any small price penalty was worth it to me.