Poll of the Day > My friend has a new PC but no way to connect to the internet

(+) Yeah! (+)

I picked him out a PC, but I didn't include anything for internet. An ethernet cable is out, so what are my options? Something Internal or will one of those USB dongles do fine?

internal is better. pcie bus is faster and better than usb bus.

so something like this?
https://www.tp-link.com/us/home-networking/pci-adapter/archer-t6e/

does "an ethernet cable is out" mean you can't use a wired connection no matter what?

if it has to be wifi, then I would aim for WiFi 6 (aka 802.11ax). that one is 802.11ac (aka WiFi 5). might not matter too much, about 50% faster. (also depends what it's connecting to, but I presume the newer standard would be more reliable and have more longevity as well.)

Well he just cant run a 100ft cable through his house. And he can't move things like the router because his mom is weird about stuff being moved.

Okay, i'll look for one like that

if wifi sucks, you can try powerline adapter. Basically, you connect your router to a wall outlet, and any wall outlet can become a ethernet port.

I assume he already has WiFi? How fast is his connection? It's kind of pointless to have a super-fast WiFi adapter if your WiFi is slow, or if your Internet connection is slow and you're not running a file server on your LAN or casting to a TV.

If the machine has USB 3.0 or higher, it should be plenty fast for a WiFi dongle. USB 3.0 supports up to 5 Gbps which is fast enough to handle all but the highest implementations of WiFi 6E (which requires pretty expensive hardware); USB 3.1 can exceed even that.