1. A system for providing a filtering classloader within a Java-based or other application environment, comprising: a child classloader that receives requests from an application to access a class; a parent classloader; a filtering classloader that acts as a parent to the child classloader, wherein the filtering classloader includes a class pattern matching information, and wherein upon receiving the request from the child classloader the filtering classloader match the request against the class pattern matching information, and if there is a match, throws a class not found exception to cause the class to be retrieved locally at the child classloader.