And it probably is. The sandboxing and security have been around a very long time.
If Python were the de-facto browser language, people would also blame it for "security problems", and would be just as paranoid about python running when they visit a website. I know whatever language it would be, people would still be paranoid.
I personally don't see any problem with Javascript. If someone knows how to use it, it can be very simple and powerful.
Before Javascript ever existed, I was wishing that websites had a scripting language. I didn't really care what it was, but Javascript answered my prayers rather nicely. But it wouldn't really matter what the language is, I'd still be coding for the web browser, and other people would be hating it for whatever reasons.
Most or many of secure mobile operating system zero days are caused by image parsing. There is a threat at least as big, if not bigger, in parsing complex file formats.
Sure gopher or gemini would be more secure, but even without JS the web ecosystem would be venerable.
V8 does some crazy stuff that makes JS one of the fastest interpreted language there is. But had JS been designed differently (Dart was an attempt at fixing some of those mistakes), it’s likely there would be less security vulnerabilities in its interpreter.
