By default, each application is assigned a unique Linux user ID. Permissions are set so that the application's files are visible only to that user and only to the application itself — although there are ways to export them to other applications as well. It's possible to arrange for two applications to share the same user ID, in which case they will be able to see each other's files. To conserve system resources, applications with the same ID can also arrange to run in the same Linux process, sharing the same VM.