This allows you to connect the USB Wi-Fi adapter through a wire and ensures the giant thing isn’t taking up precious port space. Thankfully, the package comes with a USB 3.0 cable and magnetic cradle (the Amazon version (opens in new tab) comes with this). If you plug it straight into your laptop or desktop, it will take up a considerable amount of space, and if it’s surrounded by tons of other ports being used, we predict it won’t fit at all. However, the Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 is bulky. It’ll still work when plugged into a standard USB 2.0 port, but it won’t perform as well.

It should work immediately when plugged in, but to get it functioning optimally, we recommend plugging it into a USB 3.0 port. It’s also compatible with Windows 7, 8, 10, and from macOS X 10.8.3 up to 10.15 (download this driver (opens in new tab) for Catalina support).

It provides a high transfer rate, managing 1,300 megabits per second on 5Ghz and 600 megabits per second on 2.4Ghz.

The Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 costs $68.99 and is the best USB Wi-Fi adapter you can buy right now. With the recent reveal of macOS Ventura, we will be keeping a look out on compatibility reports with the upcoming operating system as we get closer to launch. If you’re not willing to take this risk, we recommend waiting until these companies put out official drivers that support macOS Big Sur. We cannot confirm how safe this method is, but it seems that it has worked for several people. There aren't any official drivers for the TP-Link, Netgear, Trendnet and Asus adapters in this list, but certain sections of the community have put in the work to get these adapters functional.įor example, on the TP-Link forums (opens in new tab), someone discovered a user-created driver and disabled SIP (System Integrity Protection) on macOS to make it compatible. We’ve noticed a shocking lack of macOS Big Sur support for USB Wi-Fi adapters, so if you are running this operating system, you might face a bit of trouble getting it to work. USB Wi-Fi adapters macOS Big Sur and Venura support It’s the most expensive USB Wi-Fi adapter on this list, but if you don’t want a cord bothering you and are looking for high-data transfer rates, this could be a worthwhile investment. And the ASUS USB-AC68 is also quite attractive thanks to its wireless USB capabilities.

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