I found $.String.deparam the most complete pre built solution (can do nested objects etc.). Check out the documentation.

This is the simple version, obviously you'll want to add some error checking:

var obj = {};
var pairs = queryString.split('&');
for(i in pairs){
    var split = pairs[i].split('=');
    obj[decodeURIComponent(split[0])] = decodeURIComponent(split[1]);
}

Split on & to get name/value pairs, then split each pair on =. Here's an example:

var str = "abc=foo&def=%5Basf%5D&xy%5Bz=5"
var obj = str.split("&").reduce(function(prev, curr, i, arr) {
    var p = curr.split("=");
    prev[decodeURIComponent(p[0])] = decodeURIComponent(p[1]);
    return prev;
}, {});

Another approach, using regular expressions:

var obj = {}; 
str.replace(/([^=&]+)=([^&]*)/g, function(m, key, value) {
    obj[decodeURIComponent(key)] = decodeURIComponent(value);
}); 

This is adapted from John Resig's "Search and Don’t Replace".

There is no native solution that I'm aware of. Dojo has a built-in unserialization method if you use that framework by chance.

Otherwise you can implement it yourself rather simply:

function unserialize(str) {
  str = decodeURIComponent(str);
  var chunks = str.split('&'),
      obj = {};
  for(var c=0; c < chunks.length; c++) {
    var split = chunks[c].split('=', 2);
    obj[split[0]] = split[1];
  }
  return obj;
}

edit: added decodeURIComponent()

I had the same problem, tried the solutions here, but none of them really worked, since I had arrays in the URL parameters, like this:

?param[]=5&param[]=8&othr_param=abc&param[]=string

So I ended up writing my own JS function, which makes an array out of the param in URI:

/**
 * Creates an object from URL encoded data
 */
var createObjFromURI = function() {
    var uri = decodeURI(location.search.substr(1));
    var chunks = uri.split('&');
    var params = Object();

    for (var i=0; i < chunks.length ; i++) {
        var chunk = chunks[i].split('=');
        if(chunk[0].search("\\[\\]") !== -1) {
            if( typeof params[chunk[0]] === 'undefined' ) {
                params[chunk[0]] = [chunk[1]];

            } else {
                params[chunk[0]].push(chunk[1]);
            }


        } else {
            params[chunk[0]] = chunk[1];
        }
    }

    return params;
}

FIRST U NEED TO DEFINE WHAT'S A GET VAR:

function getVar()
{
    this.length = 0;
    this.keys = [];
    this.push = function(key, value)
    {
        if(key=="") key = this.length++;
        this[key] = value;
        this.keys.push(key);
        return this[key];
    }
}

Than just read:

function urlElement()
{
    var thisPrototype = window.location;
    for(var prototypeI in thisPrototype) this[prototypeI] = thisPrototype[prototypeI];
    this.Variables = new getVar();
    if(!this.search) return this;
    var variables = this.search.replace(/\?/g,'').split('&');
    for(var varI=0; varI<variables.length; varI++)
    {
        var nameval = variables[varI].split('=');
        var name = nameval[0].replace(/\]/g,'').split('[');
        var pVariable = this.Variables;
        for(var nameI=0;nameI<name.length;nameI++)
        {
            if(name.length-1==nameI) pVariable.push(name[nameI],nameval[1]);
            else var pVariable = (typeof pVariable[name[nameI]] != 'object')? pVariable.push(name[nameI],new getVar()) : pVariable[name[nameI]];
        }
    }
}

and use like:

var mlocation = new urlElement();
mlocation = mlocation.Variables;
for(var key=0;key<mlocation.keys.length;key++)
{
    console.log(key);
    console.log(mlocation[mlocation.keys[key]];
}