.eot

What is a .eot file?

EOT is a legacy web font format for Internet Explorer — obsolete in every modern browser.

Safe format
Type Font
By Microsoft
MIME application/vnd.ms-fontobject

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What is it

You found an .eot file in a web project's font directory. It's a relic. EOT (Embedded OpenType) was Microsoft's proprietary web font format, created for Internet Explorer when no other browser supported custom fonts. It served its purpose from IE4 through IE11, and now it serves no purpose at all.

EOT wrapped TrueType font data with DRM-like restrictions — the font was tied to specific domains, preventing casual redistribution. This was Microsoft's condition for allowing custom fonts on the web before the @font-face standard was widely supported. By the time WOFF and WOFF2 arrived (supported by all browsers), EOT was already an anachronism.

Only Internet Explorer opens EOT files. No modern browser supports it. If you have EOT files in a web project, they can be safely removed unless you're supporting IE8 or earlier (you're not). Replace with WOFF2 for modern browsers. FontForge (free) can convert EOT to other formats if you somehow need to recover the font data.

Technical details
Full Name
Embedded OpenType
MIME Type
application/vnd.ms-fontobject
Developer
Microsoft
Magic Bytes
N/A
Safety
.eot is a known, safe format.
What opens it
Internet Explorer
FREE Windows
FAQ
Do I need EOT files in my web project?
No. Remove them. EOT was only needed for Internet Explorer, which has been discontinued. WOFF2 is supported by every modern browser and produces smaller files. The only reason to keep EOT is if you're actively supporting IE8 or earlier.
What replaced EOT?
WOFF (2010) and WOFF2 (2014). WOFF2 with Brotli compression is the current standard — smaller files, faster loading, universal browser support. Serve WOFF2 only; include WOFF as a fallback if you must support very old browsers.
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