The Web is getting its bytecode: WebAssembly

Found on Ars Technica on Thursday, 18 June 2015
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However, there are well-known ways of providing the advantages of JavaScript without those perceived downsides: bytecode runtimes like Java and .NET. Unlike script files, the bytecode represents a low-level, fairly compact representation of a program.

WebAssembly, or wasm for short, is intended to be a portable bytecode that will be efficient for browsers to download and load, providing a more efficient target for compilers than plain JavaScript or even asm.js.

What could possibly go wrong with compiled binaries loaded into your browser. It has been tried before, and Java, ActiveX et al are examples of the failures.