New Wireless Network Adapter
 

After a move I need to revert back to wireless (against my will). Back in my graduate school days I used this:
Linksys by Cisco Wireless-G USB Network Adapter WUSB54G

It is probably 5 years old (probably older. I cant remember when I bought). It's OK but on some sites that I really use (like Rapidshare) it CRAWLS (no clue why on certain sites like but on everything else seems fine). Can anyone suggest a new adapter? I have no allegiance per se. It can be Linksys, Belkin, Netgear, etc. Thanks for any info or suggestions you may have. Cheers!

Anyone? No one can offer a suggestion, review, idea, etc? Again, any help would be great! Thanks

I must've missed this the first time around.

If the slowdowns only occur on specific sites then it has nothing to do with your wireless adapter; the adapter just passes traffic and doesn't care where it comes from (outside of your local network, anyway). If it were happening under specific circumstances or at certain times of day then it might be related to the adapter, but even then I'd be looking for sources of interference before I tried replacing the adapter itself.

Your problem is most likely related to routing issues, and caused by your ISP. Depending on your ISP, they may be able to provide some answers; major ISPs tend to use Average Joe Clueless on their helpdesk, who won't be able to answer any questions he doesn't have a flowchart for. Regardless, there isn't likely much you can do about it. Switch providers if it really bothers you and hope the new one has better transit.

The wireless adapter has WAY less to do with your internet speeds than what is on the other end. What are you connecting to?

I connect to a Netgear router and that goes to a Motorola modem (provided by Comcast). I just found out something that is quite odd. I download just fine when I use a download manager (Flashget) but when I download through my browser (Firefox) the speed crawls. Why would it be fine through a downloader and crawl through my browser when both go through the same adapter?

Thanks for the responses and help! Cheers!

Comcast is notorious for two things:

1) Terrible customer service
2) Questionable 'traffic shaping' tactics

They were caught a few years back shaping traffic on specific ports and more importantly sending TERM packets to bittorrent connections. It had the effect of dropping or constistently slowing torrents so that other traffic could get a fair share.

I wouldn't be surprised if they have some sort of filtering or shaping software running on the specific ports/packet sizes that you're using.