Comments on: Cheap, Plastic, and Stupidly Useful: My Alfa Wi-Fi Range Extender

By: Perry

Perry

I realise this has been posted a few years ago but just wanted to say you can still make it work on a Mac on High Sierra.
If you download the official drivers it will be recognised by your Mac, but the App crashes after a few seconds, there’s a way around it though.
There’s a preference Pane called Ralinkwireless which is the older one or DWA 140, they both work, one caveat, it doesn’t seem to work with enterprise WPA, at least not the DWA 140.

Note, I don’t know if you can still get the official drivers from Alfa, I checked earlier today and it seems the official site is offline, this might be a fluke or they went bust/taken over by another company.

By: Dave Dean

Dave Dean

In reply to Liz K. If the Wi-fi problem is caused by weak signal (ie, you're too far from the router), a range extender like this will help. In the case of your resort, though, it sounds more like they just didn't have enough capacity for all the devices that were connected, so the Internet only worked properly when most people were sleeping. In that situation, your options are to only stay in places with several reviews mentioning good Internet, or switch to a smartphone or Mi-fi device with a strong cell connection when the Wi-fi at your accommodation sucks.

By: Liz K

Liz K

Hello! I teach online so I need to have dependable wifi that will allow for me to reach China and back quickly. Will this do it for me if the wifi where I’m staying is unreliable? This past summer, I was staying in a hotel in the Poconos and, fortunately had taken the week off. The internet at this huge resort (condos, hotel rooms, cabins) only worked between the hours of 4am and 6am. After that ,it just spun and spun and spun. I don’t want to take time off everytime I travel.- mainly because I can’t afford it. Plus I only own a cheap, $20 every 3 month, tracfone that doesn’t have internet so I can’t go that route.
Thanks for any suggestions you can give me!

By: Dave Dean

Dave Dean

In reply to Oliver. If I was buying one today, I'd get the Panda. It's a little cheaper, and has support for newer Wi-fi technologies.

By: Oliver

Oliver

Hey there! Great article, once again! I own a brand new laptop running windows 10. Since you have great words for both the panda device and the alfa, I was wondering if one got your preference?

thanks

By: Dave Dean

Dave Dean

In reply to Lisa Griffin. I haven't used the newer model, sorry, and there aren't many reviews of it around either. If you decide to go with it, try to buy from somewhere with a good return policy in case it doesn't meet your needs.

By: Lisa Griffin

Lisa Griffin

Has anyone tested their newer version? (at least I think it’s newer, its listed as one of their ‘hot items’) I don’t think newer is always better (have you used Windows 10). Do you know which is better, the 036H or 051NH v2? https://www.alfa.com.tw/products_show.php?pc=67&ps=241

By: Dave Dean

Dave Dean

In reply to Heather. Hi Heather, Unfortunately I'm a Windows user, so my experience isn't much use to you. It still works under Windows 10, for what it's worth, but I don't believe it's worked with current versions of MacOS for quite a while now. If you want something similar with good reviews that does work with the latest MacOS versions, this looks good (and is even cheaper!)

By: Heather

Heather

Hi Dave,

Thanks so much for this article. I want to get a range extender for SE Asia and India. I am looking at this one, but not sure if it is compatible with my Mac Air running OS Sierra 10.12. Have you updated? Have you updated? If so is this range extender still working for you? I was also looking at the: AWUS036NHR V.2 I still can’t tell which will be compatible. Thoughts?

By: Dave Dean

Dave Dean

In reply to Barb. A discussion of breaking into Wi-Fi networks is beyond the scope of this article (and often illegal), so I'd suggest just asking for the passwords wherever you can. Foursquare can also be a good place to get passwords for businesses like bars, cafes etc.