Question: I've been looking to use unicode for more iconography, and I haven't been able to find any appropriate unicode for a "view" icon. None of the "eye"-related unicode that I've found works on the web. 

Does anyone know of any unicode icons that would be appropriate for a "view" icon?

Answer: 
You might struggle to find a unicode character to represent "view", but you'll find plenty of web font based icon sets with an eye or view concept.

For example, [Font Awesome](http://fortawesome.github.com/Font-Awesome/) – the icon web font used in Twitter Bootstrap – has an icon called 'icon-eye-open' that might do the trick. Font Awesome is licensed under [CC-BY-3](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) (you can use it for free as long as you credit them with a link to their site in your CSS or HTML source code), and it supports IE7 or higher.

![icon-eye-open from Font Awesome](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ftNbE.png)
This question was asked in 2012. Browsers in 2020 now support a much wider range of Unicode characters. These three Unicode characters all render in my browser (Ubuntu 19.10, latest FF and Chrome):

* Right-Pointing Magnifying Glass (`&#x1f50e;`):
* Left-Pointing Magnifying Glass: (`&#x1f50d;`):
* Eye (`&#x1f441;`):

I ran a [browser compatibility test with popular browsers](https://app.crossbrowsertesting.com/public/i2a11f6a3a18c91f/screenshots/z37812c59625fd93b9c5) (and [a 2nd](https://app.crossbrowsertesting.com/public/i2a11f6a3a18c91f/screenshots/z88a0106ffeea71e286a)) to render this answer:

* Windows 10, Firefox 77: Works
* Windows 10, Edge 18: Works
* Windows 8.1, Firefox 71: Works
* Windows 8.1, Internet Explorer 8.1: Magnifying glasses work, eye does not
* Windows 7, Internet Explorer 10: Magnifying glasses work, eye does not
* Windows 7, Chrome 81: Magnifying glasses work, eye does not
* Windows 7, Internet Explorer 9: Nothing works
* Windows 7, Chrome 70: Magnifying glasses work, eye does not
* Mac 10.14, Safari 12: Works
* Ipad Pro 11, Safari 11: Works
* Iphone X 11, Safari 11: Works
* Windows 10, Opera 63: Works
* Mac 10.14, Opera 64: Works
* Android 10.0, Chrome 79: Works
* Android 5.0, Chrome 61: Magnifying glasses work, eye does not

The maginfying glasses work fine everywhere except very old Windows and IE.

The eye works on all modern browsers but not pre-Windows-10 or older Android phones.