Improved approaches for providing secure remote access to resources maintained on private networks are disclosed. According to one aspect, predetermined elements, such as applets, can be modified to redirect all communications to and from an application server through an intermediate server. The intermediate server in turn communicates with the application servers. According to another aspect, a communication framework can be provided to funnel communication between an applet and a server through a communication layer so as to provide managed and/or secured communications there between.