With the end of Dennard scaling, the cost of computing is no longer falling at the hardware level: to improve efficiency, we need better software. Competing JavaScript runtimes are sometimes faster than Node.js: can we bridge the gap? We show that Node.js can not only match faster competitors but even surpass them given enough effort. URLs are the most fundamental element in web applications. Node.js 16 was significantly slower than competing engines (Bun and Deno) at URL parsing. By reducing the number of instructions and vectorizing sub-algorithms, we multiplied by three the speed of URL parsing in Node.js (as of Node.js 20). If you have upgraded Node.js, you have the JavaScript engine with the fastest URL parsing in the industry with uncompromising support for the latest WHATGL URL standard. We share our strategies for accelerating both C++ and JavaScript processing in practice.