Actually, the AOT optimization path for asm.js has been supported by Internet Explorer/Edge for quite some time. Chrome also supports AOT asm.js path now throug

Actually, the AOT optimization path for asm.js has been supported by Internet Explorer/Edge for quite some time. Chrome also supports AOT asm.js path now through their wasm implementation[1]. Before that Chrome and Safari did optimizations that just happened to make asm.js faster ;) It's likely that if WebAssembly didn't happen everyone would've implemented AOT optimizations for asm.js and all the new features (shared memory threads, simd, 64bit int etc.) would be targeting that instead. [1] http://benediktmeurer.de/2016/12/20/v8-behind-the-scenes-december-edition/ http://benediktmeurer.de/2016/12/20/v8-behind-the-scenes-dec...