For simple stuff like online gaming and video streaming, does

>>57623573
>online gaming and video streaming
>WiFi

You've already failed, Anonymous

>>57623573
Wireless is going to be shit no matter what. Get powerline ethernet, at least.

>>57623589
I'm using ethernet at my house, but when I'm visiting and traveling to other places and seeing relatives and friends I don't want to be the guy that brings over a 120ft ethernet cable spanning across their whole house just so I can use their internet.

>>57623846
There's nothing you can do. It's always going to be shit because more and more people are shitting up the 2.4 and 5GHz bands

>>57623846
You are on the first step of becoming someone like us who rarely go out at all. Crisp and fast Internet is more important than what any friends can bring.

>>57623573
>could these lag spikes just be because I have a crappy WiFi adapter
It definitely could be. Shittier devices are more sensitive to noise.

You're never going to beat proper gigabit ethernet with any form of wireless. Even powerline networking would be better which is also portable since you can just hook it up when you arrive.

Outside of that, do the normal steps like making sure you are on your own channel, there's 12 iirc. you're obviously going to need admin access to the router which you should be able to get if it's a friend, you won't have to change anything on their PCs to do this.

usb wifi is also going to be slower since you're limited to the usb 2.0 interface, the only way to go would be to get a 3.0 one. You should check if the card in your laptop isn't N, it was adopted around 2010. That's the only way you'd ever see an internal card get beat by a usb one. You can also replace the wi-fi card in your laptop with an N one if that were the case for a more permanent solution.

Outside of checking for obstructions, ie trying to have the least amount of solid building material from you and the AP, that's all you can do. Wifi no matter how fast is never going to beat any form of landline even powerline.

>>57624094
Also I completely forgot. Make sure you check the power settings in your OS. Sometimes you have to do this in the BIOS. Even though you're using the wifi, the OS can think you're not and then slow it down to try to save power. sadly they even do this on desktops now for "muh green" shit. you can turn off power management for these devices. might help