Alfa Long-Range Dual-Band AC1200 Wireless USB 3.0 Wi-Fi Adapter w/2x 5dBi External Antennas - 2.4GHz 300Mbps / 5Ghz 867Mbps - 802.11ac & A, B, G, N

I bought it about a month ago and have had no problems with it. It works well, and hasn't been giving me any problems lately. That's the short version. Below is a long version for anyone who really wants more information. (By the way, I would definitely recommend this product.)Anyway, on to the long version. At first I was a little worried about buying it given some of the negative reviews and all of the driver problems. I'm running a Win 8.1 machine. But bought it anyways just to try it. The shipping was great, I received it in 2-3 days and the device was completely intact and new.I tried just plugging the adapter and letting Windows auto install the driver for it because people have said that the driver on the CD didn't work. Windows did download a driver for it, but the driver didn't seem to work. It could see Wi-Fi networks around my house, but I couldn't connect to them, so I used the CD to install the driver and the Realtek USB service (after uninstalling the old driver that Windows downloaded). In the event that you do plug it in and the driver installs and you want to uninstall it, unplug it, go into device manager, and uninstall the driver. You can also try keeping it on there, but I didn't want to risk messing something up. In retrospect, the reason that I couldn't connect to any Wi-Fi was probably because the Realtek USB service is required. Edit: After a bit of use it seems that it is not required, but I like the service.So, just for reference, every single step I took once I put the disc in is as follows (which means a very long list. In reality it isn't as bad as it seems, just a lot of clicking. You can also skip it and just get to the overall review.):1. Opened "File Explorer" and clicked on "This PC" in the Navigation Menu (Also known as My Computer on older systems).2. Right clicked on my DVD drive and clicked on the "Open" option.3. Double clicked on ALFAINSTALL.exe (by the way, I remember reading a review that said a user's manual was not included on the CD. I found one in the "doc" folder on the CD.) You could also let it auto run.4. When it opened, there were three buttons. One was "Browse Disc" and the other two were for selecting the product you had. I clicked on the one that said "AWUS036AC", which is this product. The other option was a slightly different adapter.5. When I clicked on it, it asked me which driver I wanted to install or if I wanted to view the user's manual. (The three drivers it listed were Windows, Linux, and Mac. Not sure how well the Mac works, but I will look at the Linux and edit this review later.)6. Clicked on the "Windows Driver" button and it came up with another list of buttons that asked if I was using XP, 7, or 8/8.1.)7. Clicked on the "8/8.1" button and then hit "Yes" when UAC popped up.8. Next it had me install the Realtek USB Wireless LAN Driver and Utility. (Which is a fairly nice piece of software by the way.)9. Hit "Next" on the screen that popped up.10. It came up with a bar that said it was installing and then Windows asked me if I wanted to install the device software. Checked the box asking if I wanted to always trust software from Realtek Semiconductor Corp and then hit install.11. It installed and then asked if I wanted to restart my computer now or not. I hit "Yes, I want to restart my computer now." and then hit "Next".12. After my computer restarted I hit the "Show Hidden Icons" button on the right hand side of the taskbar, clicked on the "Realtek USB Wireless LAN" (hover over it to see the name) which opened an application window.13. I then plugged in the wireless adapter and the application automatically found it.14. I clicked on the "Available Network" tab and it showed a list of networks I could connect to.15. I clicked on the network I wanted, typed in the Network Key (password), hit "Okay", and it worked perfectly. I tried it on 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz and both of them work fine.If you have any questions, please ask in the comments.So far, the signal has been fairly consistent. It is usually around 95%, but goes between 90 and 100. For some reason it also occasionally freaks out and drops to 75% or 80%. But maybe that's because I am using USB 2.0 instead of 3.0 so it's not getting the same power it would on 3.0 (I have no clue so I am making a slightly educated guess)? I don't have good internet, so I can't speak for the speed. Also, I regularly use the 2.4 GHz band because 2.4 GHz is an inherently stronger/farther reaching signal. At average of 95% I am around 30 feet away from my router, with a few walls in between. I have noticed that the percentage doesn't really change much between 20 and 40 feet. It stays in that same range I mentioned earlier, and it still does the same freaking out thing.Just so everyone knows, I am using a Wireless-N network on the 2.4 and AC on the 5. I am also using a USB 2.0 because of the orientation of the USB ports on my laptop. It's light enough that you can also stick it strait into your computer without harming it or the USB port.Pros:Works on Windows 7 and 8.1Good signal reception and transmissionDoesn't cut outThe Realtek USB Wireless LAN program is pretty goodIt supports USB 3.0It supports AC wirelessIt operates at 300 Mbps instead of 150 MbpsIt comes with a USB dock that has a 4' USB cableNo problems with shipping. It came in 2-3 days.It is as it was advertisedYou can use different antennas if you want, maybe a lower or a higher dbi antennaCons:Sometimes the installer disc ships with old driversCan use without the two antennas, but not very good wirelessThe dock is 2.0Occasionally freaks out and drops about 15% in signal strength10" tall when in dock and about 8-1/2" tall when in computerRequires the Realtek Software to operate wellAt some point here I will test it on Linux and edit this review to include info about how it works.

I've had a good experience with this device. First of all, I bought it because it has Wireless AC technology and removable antennas. I put a homemade 15 element Yagi-Uda antenna on this and I was able to get internet connections 2,000 feet across open water with great speeds (15 ms ping times and 35 MB/s downloads). I'm using it on a boat and it has been working even with some rain and heavy winds (I wrapped the device in duck tape so it wouldn't get wet). I also added a longer USB cord; a longer USB cord is better than a longer coaxial/antenna cable. It might be hard to believe, as it was for me, that 2.4GHz wifi can reach out across 2,000 feet. This little device with a Yagi is amazing. Before I tried the homemade Yagi, I tried some 10 dBi omnidirectional antennas. Those were pretty terrible as they picked up too many hotspots and a lot of noise along with it. All in all, I'm really satisfied with this device. The small size, good price, good power, remove-able antennas and the ability to do both 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz were all a big plus.Now for the only downside, which was the drivers. I tried to install the drivers on both Mac OS X El Capitan 10.11 and Ubuntu mate 16.04. I had to dig around the Alpha website for a while to find drivers. Installing the drivers on Ubuntu failed and I gave up. The Drivers for Mac OS X El Capitan 10.11 work, however, I wish they were a little better integrated with the operating system. For instance, the driver program runs as a menu bar item which has to be started with admin privileges. If your main account user doesn't have admin privileges you have to either start-up the computer to an admin account before using your non-admin account or do a little hacking with visudo. It would also be nice if the Mac OS X driver program showed better wifi signal strength information.

I am unfortunately in a situation where I am not able to use a proper wired network at the moment. I had used several USB adapters, but ultimately decided on a wireless bridge (D-Link DAP1650) to keep as many machines wired together as possible. Inexplicably, bandwidth dropped so badly while using the bridge that I needed to find a replacement. I have been using ALFA wireless adapters for a long time for security research, and I liked the idea of a USB 3.0 AC-wireless adapter with large antennae that would get me the best possible bandwidth.I have deducted one star for a simple reason - the extension cable and desktop mount is not USB 3.0. This seems like a crazy oversight, but it does make a substantial difference. I purchased a separate 4-port USB 3.0 hub and double-stick taped it to the base of one of my monitors. Works like a charm, and I also have a convenient place to attach external HDDs, USB sticks, etc.As far as performance goes, I am very happy. I consistently get 180-200Mbps downstream and 18-25Mbps upstream via Ookla speed test, and my internet tier is 200/20. Speed test are hardly an indicator of real performance, however, so I am happy to report that I am consistently getting 25MB/s (200Mbps) when downloading large games like GTA V, The Division, etc. on Steam. So I'm very pleased with the WAN performance via this adapter. On LAN I am getting very acceptable speeds as well. I have no issues streaming 4K video from my NAS, file copies are sufficiently fast to/from the NAS, and I am not getting dropped connections at all. I'm not sure what issues some other people are having with dropped connections, but it's never happened to me without some other source being the issue (e.g. my router rebooting itself after I made a settings change).Very very happy. Could easily be 5-star item but just make the extension cable USB 3.0!