Firefox locking up

[Leonard Bussey]

I tried installing the java runtime environment using the instructions
on Sun's website. 
 
I downloaded the jre-6u7-linux-i586.bin file  
extracted it into /home/leonard/jre.1.6.0_07
chmod a_x jre-6u7-linux-i586.bin to make it executable
./jre-6u7-linux-i586.bin to install
cd /usr/lib/firefox-3.0/plugins
ln -s /home/leonard/jre.1.6.0_07/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so

Now whenever I start Firefox it locks up after a few minutes.  Sometimes
it justs closes by itself and other times it locks the system up.  I
have to log onto another vitual terminal to recover.  

I am running Hardy 8.04 with Firefox 3.0.  Thank you for any assistance.