A
program designed to be
executed from within another
application. Unlike an application, applets cannot be executed directly from the
operating system. With the growing popularity of
OLE (object linking and embedding), applets are becoming more prevalent. A well-designed applet can be invoked from many different applications.
Web browsers, which are often equipped with Java virtual machines, can interpret applets from Web servers. Because applets are small in files size, cross-platform compatible, and highly secure (can't be used to access users' hard drives), they are ideal for small Internet applications accessible from a browser.
