[Sephr]

There is even an actual Unicode symbol for the left-pointing magnifying glass ([1]) that they are using, yet they use the PUA anyways.

I use the [1] Unicode symbol semantically on my blog with a custom font at http://eligrey.com/blog/

1. Edit: Hacker News seems to have stripped the character from my message. I am referring to U+1F50D left-pointing magnifying glass.

[tombrossman]

NB I still get a broken character and not the magnifying glass on your site: https://imgur.com/a/3Rb7t

[ChrisGranger]

I've made a point of installing a variety of extra Unicode fonts like Symbola, and I still find sites with characters that don't render properly. I do see the magnifying glass on the parent comment's site though...