Methods and apparatus for executing an applet are disclosed. A virtual machine that includes a class loader generates a file download request in the form of an http request to a particular server computer that contains appropriate applet component files. The class loader queries a root JAR file having an index file associated with applet. The class loader creates a HASH table based upon the contents of the index file that provides a mapping of all packages and all corresponding JAR files required to execute the applet by the virtual machine. During virtual machine runtime the class loader queries the HASH table in order to directly access the appropriate applet component file to be downloaded and executed by the virtual machine.