For me, the main reason to prefer unsigned integers whenever possible is: less special cases. When a signed integer is used as an array index, the value can be

For me, the main reason to prefer unsigned integers whenever possible is: less special cases. When a signed integer is used as an array index, the value can be in one of three ranges: the <0 range, the >=0 && <size range, and the >=size range. To validate the index, you need two comparisons. When an unsigned integer is used as an array index, there are only two ranges: the <size range, and the >=size range, and you need only a single comparison. And that's not the worst situation with signed integers. From a more general point of view, there are four "classes" of signed integer: positive (>0), zero, negative (<0), and INT_MIN. Everybody tends to forget about that last one, but it's "special" in that it can break things in unexpected ways. Negating it doesn't work (you'd expect negating any number less than zero to result in a number greater than zero, but for INT_MIN that doesn't happen). Dividing it can trap (see for instance https://kqueue.org/blog/2012/12/31/idiv-dos/ https://kqueue.org/blog/2012/12/31/idiv-dos/ which has a couple of examples) or worse. With unsigned integers, there are only two "classes", zero and non-zero, and it's common to not even need special treatment for zero, reducing the whole thing to a single "class" of values.