Returns a decoded version of the URL-encoded string passed as a parameter to the function. URL encoding converts nonalphanumeric characters (except * _ + - . / and, in IE, @) to hexadecimal values (such as %20 for the space character). Note that in IE 5.5 for Windows and Netscape 6, this method has been deprecated in favor of the decodeURI( ) and decodeURIComponent( ) methods. This method has been removed from the ECMA 3 specification.