What's the difference between %26 and & for an ampersand? [duplicate]

Question

What is the difference between & and & for & (ampersand)?

What should be used with UTF-8?

Answer 1

Both are character references and refer to the same character (AMPERSAND, U+0026). & is a named or entity character reference and & is a numerical character reference.

In fact, & is actually just a substitution for & (see list of character entities):

<!ENTITY amp     CDATA "&#38;"   -- ampersand, U+0026 ISOnum -->