MS(IE) had ActiveScript, of which VBS was just one implementation (although it was the bundled one that always existed). People have built integrations for stuff like Tcl, Python, or Perl, making them available to the browser.

Example: https://perlhacks.com/2026/07/remember-perlscript-when-inter...

Linked article is AI slop. Am I going crazy?

Well the actual pages from that time are mostly gone and that was what I could find with some examples and explanatory text.