Do applets and the browser share a cache?

Question

I have a third party applet that makes use a csv file, let's call it file.csv, and makes use of all of the columns. I also have a third party swf object that makes use of file.csv but only makes use of 20% of the columns. The initial decision was to use the same file for both because it would result in easier maintenance.

My question is, does file.csv get downloaded by the browser once and get shared by both the applet and the swf OR are both the applet and the swf downloading their own copy of file.csv?

This is important because file.csv is a large file and if the user has to download it twice, there would be a bandwidth savings in maintaining two versions.

Using Firebug, the CSV is only listed once. However, when I remove the swf, the applet still fetches file.csv but it is not listed in Firebug.

Answer 1

Answering my own question, but further investigation revealed that the applet and the browser were both downloading the file independently.