diff --git a/packages/flutter_tools/lib/src/isolated/devfs_web.dart b/packages/flutter_tools/lib/src/isolated/devfs_web.dart
index d41853a01f..89487edcc3 100644
--- a/packages/flutter_tools/lib/src/isolated/devfs_web.dart
+++ b/packages/flutter_tools/lib/src/isolated/devfs_web.dart
@@ -50,10 +50,12 @@ typedef DwdsLauncher =
required ToolConfiguration toolConfiguration,
});
-// A minimal index for projects that do not yet support web.
+// A minimal index for projects that do not yet support web. A meta tag is used
+// to ensure loaded scripts are always parsed as UTF-8.
const String _kDefaultIndex = '''
+
diff --git a/packages/flutter_tools/lib/src/web/bootstrap.dart b/packages/flutter_tools/lib/src/web/bootstrap.dart
index 633b7ed06d..eb1877942b 100644
--- a/packages/flutter_tools/lib/src/web/bootstrap.dart
+++ b/packages/flutter_tools/lib/src/web/bootstrap.dart
@@ -6,14 +6,6 @@ import 'package:package_config/package_config.dart';
/// Used to load prerequisite scripts such as ddc_module_loader.js
const String _simpleLoaderScript = r'''
-// Declare the character set of the document to align with require.js. Using a
-// meta element is preferable to changing the individual script elements'
-// `charset` as the scripts should inherit the document's character set, and
-// modifying a script element's character set is deprecated.
-var meta = document.createElement('meta');
-meta.charset = 'utf-8';
-document.head.insertBefore(meta, document.head.firstChild);
-
window.$dartCreateScript = (function() {
// Find the nonce value. (Note, this is only computed once.)
var scripts = Array.from(document.getElementsByTagName("script"));