If you want to connect your Hackintosh to the internet via WiFi, you'll usually have to set up a separate wireless adapter (also known as a WiFi card). When choosing a WiFi adapter, your two main options are to buy either a PCI adapter or a USB adapter. The names are self-explanatory; a PCI adapter should be attached to a motherboard PCI slot, while a USB adapter should be attached to a USB port.

Both mediums have their own advantages and disadvantages., but if that isn't an option, read on for a list of compatible USB WiFi adapters instead. Latest Update (December 7, 2014): Added notes on Yosemite compatibility! Should I use USB? Before I start giving recommendations, we need to address a fundamental question: should you really use a USB adapter to connect your Hackintosh to WiFi? Granted, using a USB solution has certain advantages.

• USB adapters don't take up an extra PCI slot. Most motherboards have a relatively limited number of PCI slots. You may not want to waste an extra slot on your WiFi adapter if you plan on connecting a lot of PCI devices, such as graphics cards, sound cards, Firewire cards, RAID cards, TV tuner cards, or so on. Micro-ATX motherboards usually only come with 2-3 slots. Are even worse; most of them only feature a single PCI slot, making a USB WiFi adapter all the more important.

• USB adapters are slightly cheaper. Most PCI adapters cost $30-40, while USB adapters rarely cost more than $20. Sometimes, you can even find USB adapters on sale for half that price. It's not a big price difference, but it's still something worth considering. • A lot more USB adapters work. While Mac OS X only supports an extremely limited number of PCI WiFi adapters, there are literally hundreds of USB WiFi adapters that work with OS X to some degree or another.

Wireless adapters free computers from needing Ethernet cables, delivering advanced Wi-Fi capabilities and upgrading your Wi-Fi-enabled computers to the fastest, latest wireless technology.

This means that you might not even have to buy a new adapter for your Hackintosh; if you already own a USB WiFi adapter, there's a decent chance that it'll work in Mac OS X. That being said, using a USB WiFi adapter isn't for everybody. In many cases, buying a PCI WiFi adapter would actually be a better choice. As we discussed in, some PCI adapters are 'natively' supported in Mac OS X, meaning that they will work on your Hackintosh automatically.

This is not the case for USB adapters, which always require third-party drivers. This brings its fair share of disadvantages: • You have to turn on a utility every time. In addition to installing drivers, in order to get WiFi working correctly with a USB adapter, you will have to turn on a third-party WiFi utility app every time you boot your Hackintosh. Although this is not very hard to do, it can get to be very annoying if you reboot your computer frequently. • You have to wait for new drivers. The lack of native support for USB WiFi adapters means that you can't count on your adapter to work between different versions of Mac OS X. Instead, every time Mac OS X gets a big update (e.g. From Mountain Lion to Mavericks), you'll have to wait for WiFi chipset manufacturers to update their drivers appropriately. For instance, the chipset manufacturer Ralink didn't release drivers for OS X Mountain Lion, four whole months after the official July 25 release of the operating system.

How to display a desktop site on chrome for mac. Most chipsets inside USB WiFi Adapters are manufactured by either Realtek or Ralink. To this day, Realtek still hasn't officially released drivers for OS X Mavericks (10.9) or Yosemite (10.10), the two newest versions of Mac OS X-- however, Realtek's drivers for Lion (10.7) and Mountain Lion (10.8) sometimes work on newer versions of OS X anyways. Meanwhile, Ralink released Mavericks drivers in November 2013, but still hasn't officially released drivers for Yosemite-- however, you may still be able to get WiFi working in Yosemite thanks to.

The following modern WiFi chipsets are generally considered compatible with OS X Mountain Lion. They may also be compatible with Mavericks and Yosemite, but with more uncertainty. These chipsets sometimes work with older versions of Mac OS X too, depending on the drivers.