Helpful to verify reports of your own downtime, or to double check a downed website you are trying to access.
One of a set of tools we are providing to everyone as a way of saying thank you for being a part of the community.
You must get the user to grant the applet additional permissions if you with to connect to other sites.
You could of course simply display the page in another browser window, instead of having the applet display it:
applet.getAppletContext().