Literary every computation heavy code - physics engines, 3D engines, game engines, visualizations, etc.
I have big hopes for WebAssembly. It's power comes from being platform and language independent format, that can run in every browser. The end-goal of WebAssembly is to provide safe and optimized way of running code in native-like speed.
WebAssembly promise to improve load times and overall performance by executing parsed and compiled ahead of time binary code. Soon, WebAssembly will support DOM manipulation and multiple Web APIs by providing Platform APIs, with which different languages will communicate with the browser, which will make WebAssembly even more useful.
Or another way to infect windows computers with dodgy viruses / malware / worms
That won't be possible. WebAssembly code is executed within a sandbox environment, that is separated from the host runtime. So, the executed code can't escape the sandbox.
Also, each WASM module apply security policies for web and non-web envirnments. For web, that is the Same-Origin Policy and for non-web it's the POSIX security model.
Kleo Petrov
Professional human being for 29 years
Few things comes to my mind:
I have big hopes for WebAssembly. It's power comes from being platform and language independent format, that can run in every browser. The end-goal of WebAssembly is to provide safe and optimized way of running code in native-like speed.
WebAssembly promise to improve load times and overall performance by executing parsed and compiled ahead of time binary code. Soon, WebAssembly will support DOM manipulation and multiple Web APIs by providing Platform APIs, with which different languages will communicate with the browser, which will make WebAssembly even more useful.