You're missing the point. The current optimized-for-normal-javascript Chrome takes a 6x hit on asm.js code, compared to odinmonkey. That's kind-of crappy but it's not a killer, and it could get asmjs support (maybe, who knows). The fear I was talking about was browsers which are already much slower than Chrome , and have no chance in hell of ever getting asmjs support, hence the mention of IE6.