Utf-8?

[Septimus]

I've been thinking about converting to Utf-8, but all I have heard are horror stories. I keep hearing that some mods don't support it, that it messes things up.. etc.

So I would like to know the pros and cons of using it.

I don't need or plan to have any language other than English, however, my forum integrates with my website and blog, which both had issues displaying forum content because it didnt use the right charset (now they are forced to use the same one as the forum uses). Also, the thing I use to backup my database backs it up in "utf-8" and there is nothing I can do to change that... does that mean my backups are bad?

I have over 65,000 posts (quite large ones), and the database currently uses "latin1_swedish_ci".

[H]

IMO I don't see any major advantages for using UTF-8 in your case

[Septimus]

my forum integrates with my website and blog, which both had issues displaying forum content because it didnt use the right charset (now they are forced to use the same one as the forum uses). Also, the thing I use to backup my database backs it up in "utf-8" and there is nothing I can do to change that... does that mean my backups are bad?

What about all of that?

Who would it benefit?

[H]

Which program are you using for the DB backup?

How are you getting forum stuff on your site? SSI or custom code?

[Septimus]

SSI, I'm not smart enough for custom code .

http://www.mysqldumper.de/en/ <I use that for DB backups

[H]

Does it still use UTF8 if you use phpmyadmin for the backup? (What is phpMyAdmin?)

[Septimus]

Not sure, I don't think so. It's just that program that does it, and maybe my forum, as any backup I take from it doesnt work. It's usually corrupted and truncated . I have to import in ANSI... I have no clue when it comes to this stuff .