FileFormat.Info
Shares rank 5 of 7 reference documentations by recommenders
Developers find it a useful, complete Unicode character reference that works without JavaScript. Critics mainly note that its pages carry many tracking vendors and ad partners.
Developers find it a useful, complete Unicode character reference that works without JavaScript. Critics mainly note that its pages carry many tracking vendors and ad partners.
5 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 1 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 1 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Useful and loved for lookups
“always found it incredibly useful for this exact purpose”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol” “I love fileformat.info, thank you so much for it!”
Comment from 31 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol” “it's always proven invaluable”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Tracking vendors and ad partners
“141 TCF vendor(s) and 69 ad partner(s) want to track you”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: One clean, developer-focused page for every Unicode symbol”
Other reference documentations people recommend
The four most recommended other reference documentations, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stack Overflow | 235 | 499 | 32% | 12 | 15 yrs39 owners | — |
| MDN Web Docs | 27 | 6 | 82% | 7 | — | Approved |
| HTTP Cats | 20 | 1 | 95% | 1 | 10 yrs3 owners | — |
| Unicode symbol reference page | 8 | 17 | 32% | 1 | — | — |
| FileFormat.InfoThis page | 5 | 0 | 100% | 1 | — | — |
What people said
All 5 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I love fileformat.info, thank you so much for it!”
“it's always proven invaluable”
“141 TCF vendor(s) and 69 ad partner(s) want to track you”
“always found it incredibly useful for this exact purpose”
“it has all the data and works w/o JavaScript”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.