You're also missing that even on chrome the js and layout engines run different threads. Same with audio and video rendering. Same with downloads. The average page is probably running things on 10-20 random threads. And the average user has multiple tabs open.
Multicore CPU is so common these days that any performance critical code that can be parallelized, is. This includes GZIP and HTTP which are used heavily by web browsers. The network stacks underneath those in the OS are also multi core capable.
Single thread performance is not all that important anymore. It's better to have 2x the number of fast cores than half the number of slightly faster cores in almost every situation these days.