Encoding
encoding
text
unicode
What is UTF-8?
Definition
UTF-8 is a variable-width character encoding that can represent every character in the Unicode standard. It uses 1 to 4 bytes per character, with ASCII characters using just 1 byte, making it backward-compatible with ASCII.
Why It Matters
UTF-8 is the dominant encoding on the web, used by over 98% of websites. It efficiently encodes English text (1 byte per character) while supporting every world script. Choosing UTF-8 prevents character corruption, mojibake, and encoding-related bugs.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between UTF-8 and UTF-16?
UTF-8 uses 1-4 bytes per character and is efficient for ASCII-heavy text. UTF-16 uses 2 or 4 bytes, making it more efficient for Asian scripts but wasteful for English text. The web uses UTF-8; Windows and Java use UTF-16 internally.