In my language there are numerous characters that are not allowed in the standard domain name. However, most of these can be easily replaced with safe equivalents (mostly dropping accents í
becomes i
etc.). So while we have often registered both forms (e.g. timarit.is
and the proper Icelandic tímarit.is
) we have always made the 'safe' form the default and the other merely redirects to it.
However, we are now in the position where the substitution is less favorable (æ
becomes ae
) and would prefer to use the internationalized name by default.
My question is simply if there are any known issues with this? Browser incompatibility comes first to mind, but I'm equally worried there are other things that aren't coming to mind.
BOUNTY
I started a bounty on this so I won’t have to post a duplicate question. I’d like to hear if there are any practical consequences using IDNs with (1) FTP and (2) e-mail servers/clients; and (3) which browsers struggle with the domains? (4) What about mobile devices‽ Also (5) has anything changed on the subject—it's almost a year since the question was asked.