1. A computer-implemented method performed by a computer, comprising: for each of two or more applications from a plurality of applications available on a server: requesting the application from the server; receiving a bootstrap object from the server, wherein the bootstrap object is independent of each of the requested applications and includes one or more default settings for each of the requested applications, the default settings being default settings for each of the plurality of applications available on the server and including a default plugin handle, wherein the same bootstrap object is received by the computer in response to the requests for each of the two or more applications; initializing the requested application in a corresponding user interface according to the default settings in the bootstrap object; receiving, in response to requesting the application, a corresponding application configuration object from the server, wherein each of the application configuration objects is specific to the corresponding requested application and includes a plurality of corresponding plugin handles, each of the plurality of applications has a corresponding application configuration object different from each of the other application configuration objects in that each application configuration object incudes a different set of plugin handles; loading, by the bootstrap object, the corresponding application configuration object; receiving a default plugin from the server; and loading the default plugin in the corresponding user interface, wherein loading each of the default plugins exposes an application programming interface (API) of the default plugin to the bootstrap object.