system: suse 11.3 (32 bit), kde 4, ff 3.6.10.
scenario: my system is uptodate, and the java version installed (suse vendor) is older (1.6.18) then the version on the java site (1.6.21) http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp. so i downloaded from java site and installed the file. when i did run "java -version" i was getting the older version. for some reason the system was using my older installation. to fix that i went to "/etc/alternatives/java" ("java" file is a link) and changed the link destination from "/usr/lib/jvm/jre-1.6.0-openjdk/bin/java" to "/usr/lib/jvm/jre-1.6.0-sun/bin/java". now when i run "java -version" i am getting the new version (hope others can benefit from this). but then i go to http://www.java.com/en/download/help/testvm.xml to test my java plugin i still get the older version.
what needs to be changed in order to use the plugin of the newer version? its something to do with "/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-openjdk-1.6.0/jre/lib/i386/IcedTeaPlugin.so" but i could not find any correlation...

... this is not the best method, try the 'alternatives' command.

It looks like Firefox still has a copy of or link to the old version, check Firefox's plugins directory to see which it is then remove/replace with the newer one

cheers

this is not a fix, but as long as its working. just a small redirection)

firefox is using "/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-openjdk-1.6.0/jre/lib/i386/IcedTeaPlugin.so". i noticed that if i alter the name "bin" in the "/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-openjdk-1.6.0/jre" i get the error in the browser when try to run any java applet. thi means the applet uses some files from that folder, mos probably 2java" file. if i create a "bin" link to the bin folder of sun "/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-sun-1.6.0/jre" the applet+ff is working, but still displaying the old version. but the "java" file from the sun's "bin" folder is definitely of new version. so this means the version info is pulled from somewhere else. or maybe the new version of java is used, but displaying the older version?