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.wasm

Use caution

WebAssembly

A binary instruction format that runs near-native in browsers. Compiled from Rust / C / C++ for heavy computation or fast web apps.

MIME types

  • application/wasm

Category

web

What opens this file

  • Browsers (Chrome / Firefox / Safari / Edge)
  • Wasmtime
  • Node.js

How to open by OS

Windows

  • Browsers, Node.js, Wasmtime.

Mac

  • Same.

Linux

  • Same.

Ios

  • Safari 11+.

Android

  • Chrome 57+.

Safety notes

  • WebAssembly executes in a sandbox, but the host-function bridge is where vulnerabilities hide.
  • Runtimes like Wasmtime and WasmEdge rely on capability-based security to restrict host calls.

Common mistakes

  • Not serving WASM as application/wasm breaks instantiateStreaming.
  • Shipping large .wasm files without gzip (or brotli) compression makes load times suffer.

Related extensions

References