I haven't tried it recently (as in the past month), but I like to fire up the browser, press Ctrl+L, type an address and press Enter in a few seconds. That seems to take forever on Firefox compared to Chrome.
AFAIK Chrome starts up a background process after your computer has booted up, which then helps it start faster. So, if you just told your OS to start up Firefox on boot and then didn't close it afterwards, that should have pretty much the same effect.
I agree, though, that having an option for this in Firefox would be good.
I agree, though, that having an option for this in Firefox would be good.