What is a cheap wifi adapter with long range?

[plantlet]

My dad got a new apartment and only gets one WPA protected signal. What is a cheap wifi adapter with good range that could pick up at least one decent unsecured signal? Preferably I could buy locally like at Walmart, Best Buy, because his birthday is 3/15 and I want it by then.

 

[bill001g]

You will get similar results with just about any USB wireless adapter you can find. If you can get one with external antenna it would be best.

Still if you cannot detect a wireless signal now it is unlikely any card will give you a usable signal. You might be able to detect one but there is a huge difference between being able to see it and being able to use it. If you could already see it and it was not strong enough then maybe a better card might help when you can't see it at all it is unlikley it will go from zero signal to usable just with a different card.

Then again I suspect you are wasting your time. If you are trying to get lucky and use someone else unprotected internet these are more and more rare. The routers by default come with protection enabled and warn you if you attempt to turn it off.