The Alfa AWUS036H was a great WiFi USB adapter back in the day especially with Backtrack / Kali Linux and penetration testing, but its age caught up with it as the 8187 chipset the AWUS036H used is only a wireless G chipset.
Most devices now use wireless N leaving the legacy 802.11g standard to the history books. To make up for the lack of wireless N support in their most popular adapter Alfa released the Alfa AWUS036NHR to do everything the AWUS036H but with 802.11n support.
Alfa makes made two versions of the AWUS036NHR both using the 8188RU chipset. The first second version was built after complaints about the first version although there is no definite word from Alfa about it.
Version one circuit board
Version two circuit board
The current version 2 is getting many positive reviews on forums when it comes to penetration testing with Kali Linux. So far it seems to be a good replacement for the AWUS036H doing the things it was legendary for, ease of installation, monitor mode, deauth command capable and so on.
The Kali Linux community is not the only ones who are liking the AWUS036NHR, the Raspberry Pi community also is giving it many positive reviews and feedback.
Although its power requirements make Raspberry Pi users place a USB hub between the RasPi and the adapter to supply the USB power the Raspberry Pi doesn’t delver.