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Here's a quick method that doesn't require creating a div, and decodes the "most common" HTML escaped chars:

function decodeHTMLEntities(text) {
    var entities = [
        ['amp', '&'],
        ['apos', '\''],
        ['#x27', '\''],
        ['#x2F', '/'],
        ['#39', '\''],
        ['#47', '/'],
        ['lt', '<'],
        ['gt', '>'],
        ['nbsp', ' '],
        ['quot', '"']
    ];
    
    for (var i = 0, max = entities.length; i < max; ++i) 
        text = text.replace(new RegExp('&'+entities[i][0]+';', 'g'), entities[i][1]);
    
    return text;
}

Here's a quick method that doesn't require creating a div, and decodes the "most common" HTML escaped chars:

function decodeHTMLEntities(text) {
    var entities = [
        ['amp', '&'],
        ['apos', '\''],
        ['#x27', '\''],
        ['#x2F', '/'],
        ['#39', '\''],
        ['#47', '/'],
        ['lt', '<'],
        ['gt', '>'],
        ['nbsp', ' '],
        ['quot', '"']
    ];

    for (var i = 0, max = entities.length; i < max; ++i)
        text = text.replace(new RegExp('&' + entities[i][0] + ';', 'g'), entities[i][1]);

    return text;
}

console.log(decodeHTMLEntities('&amp; &quot;'));

All the answers in this post are either unnecessarily slow or insecure with untrusted user inputs.

function decodeHTMLEntities(text) {
    var entities = [
        ['apos', '\''],
        ['amp', '&'],
        ['lt', '<'],
        ['gt', '>'],
        ['nbsp', ' '],
    ];
    
    for (var i = 0, max = entities.length; i < max; ++i) 
        text = text.replace(new RegExp('&'+entities[i][0]+';', 'g'), entities[i][1]);
    
    return text;
}

Here's a quick method that doesn't require creating a div, and decodes the "most common" HTML escaped chars:

function decodeHTMLEntities(text) {
    var entities = [
        ['amp', '&'],
        ['apos', '\''],
        ['#x27', '\''],
        ['#x2F', '/'],
        ['#39', '\''],
        ['#47', '/'],
        ['lt', '<'],
        ['gt', '>'],
        ['nbsp', ' '],
        ['quot', '"']
    ];
    
    for (var i = 0, max = entities.length; i < max; ++i) 
        text = text.replace(new RegExp('&'+entities[i][0]+';', 'g'), entities[i][1]);
    
    return text;
}

All the answers in this post are either unnecessarily slow or insecure with untrusted user inputs.

function decodeHTMLEntities(text) {
    var entities = [
        ['apos', '\''],
        ['amp', '&'],
        ['lt', '<'],
        ['gt', '>']
    ];
    
    for (var i = 0, max = entities.length; i < max; ++i) 
        text = text.replace(new RegExp('&'+entities[i][0]+';', 'g'), entities[i][1]);
    
    return text;
}

All the answers in this post are either unnecessarily slow or insecure with untrusted user inputs.

function decodeHTMLEntities(text) {
    var entities = [
        ['apos', '\''],
        ['amp', '&'],
        ['lt', '<'],
        ['gt', '>'],
        ['nbsp', ' '],
    ];
    
    for (var i = 0, max = entities.length; i < max; ++i) 
        text = text.replace(new RegExp('&'+entities[i][0]+';', 'g'), entities[i][1]);
    
    return text;
}