Unicode and UTF-8

Unicode assigns each character a number, but UTF-8 encodes these numbers in a fashion that is transferrable over the Internet.
Some web browsers (Mac Internet Explorer 5, Mac OS 9 browsers) are not truly Unicode compliant, but make use of translation tables to map common UTF-8 characters to non-Unicode fonts.
IPA characters are not included in translation tables, and thus require a browser with true Unicode support.

Unicode assigns each character a number, but UTF-8 encodes these numbers in a fashion that is transferrable over the Internet.