et A small program written in a language called Java, that can be placed in a HTML page These programs can be as simple as games or can serve a commercial purpose, such as Currency Converters, or Data Graph programs Applets are different than Java applications, in that they are not allowed to access certain resources on the local computer ( this is called the sandbox in Java programming), such as files and serial devices (modems, printers, etc ), and are prohibited from communicating with other computers across a network