Abstract

With the availability of the internet, it is hard to imagine today’s world without web applications. By historical accident, JavaScript is the only widely supported programming language on the Web. For a long time no other standard could be established for the calculations on the client side of web applications. The evolution of hardware enables end devices to handle more complex applications. Because of its old-fashioned architecture, JavaScript is an obstacle to the evolution of web applications. For this reason, developers from the relevant browser manufacturers have joined together to develop a solution. As a result, WebAssembly has been available since late 2017. The goal of the development is a supplement to JavaScript, which should improve loading times as well as execution. This paper gives an overview of WebAssembly, discusses the approach as well as with respect to its practical predecessor like Google Native Client.