A value that is used when no other value has been supplied. Defaults may be stored in a configuration file, or they may be embedded in a program or permanently encoded into ROM, or read from the settings of a DIP switch. Nearly every application has defaults for something. For instance, word processors have default fonts, justification, and page length, World Wide Web browsers have default home pages, compilers have default optimization levels, and drawing programs have default palettes and pen thickness.