When I open a url with special characters using window.location, it seems to percent encode the special characters and then opens the URL. For example
var url = "http://gramfeed.com/instagram/tags/kühl";
window.location = url;
This will result in opening a page with URL:
http://gramfeed.com/instagram/tags/k%C3%BChl
instead of:
http://gramfeed.com/instagram/tags/kühl
How do I make the URL open correctly without percent encoded characters
Here is a jsfiddle to play with the code: http://jsfiddle.net/krisrak/aSkMR/
I do not believe the problem is with windows.location and your JavaScript. The problems is rather with how gramfeed.com interprets tags. Try this in your code:
var url = "https://www.google.com/search?q=kühl"
window.location = url;
See that special characters stay unconverted.
Now try typing http://gramfeed.com/instagram/tags/kühl
directly in browser address bar - the URL gets converted.