What's the difference between UTF-8 and UTF-8 without BOM?

Question

What\'s different between UTF-8 and UTF-8 without a BOM? Which is better?

Answer 1

UTF-8 with BOM only helps if the file actually contains some non-ASCII characters. If it is included and there aren't any, then it will possibly break older applications that would have otherwise interpreted the file as plain ASCII. These applications will definitely fail when they come across a non ASCII character, so in my opinion the BOM should only be added when the file can, and should, no longer be interpreted as plain ASCII.

I want to make it clear that I prefer to not have the BOM at all. Add it in if some old rubbish breaks without it, and replacing that legacy application is not feasible.

Don't make anything expect a BOM for UTF-8.