title: Why does Git have a 'Check ✓' mark in its querystring?
body: <p>I was searching about something on Git when I noticed that in the query string, there's a parameter <code>utf8</code> and its value is <code>✓</code>! Not <code>utf8=yes</code> or <code>utf8=true</code>.</p>
  
  <p>The full URL is following in Chrome and Firefox:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p><a href="https://github.com/Modernizr/Modernizr/search?utf8=" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://github.com/Modernizr/Modernizr/search?utf8=</a>✓&amp;q=browser&amp;type=</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>But following in IE:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p><a href="https://github.com/Modernizr/Modernizr/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&amp;q=browser&amp;type=" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://github.com/Modernizr/Modernizr/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&amp;q=browser&amp;type=</a></p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>So it seems to be a way of detecting the encoding scheme for the URL, but does anyone know for sure? Also, aren't there any simpler ways of doing this?</p>