I use firefox as my primary web browser. I have for a number of years. Lots of things about it irritate me. Today's irritation is it's startup sequence.

You kids can play at home too! Do this:

tcpdump -np 'port 53'

Now, start firefox fresh. Watch it do a dns lookup. Now do something to disable dns, such as pointing dns at an invalid server, or adding a search suffix to your dns client such that your hostname.suffix does not exist. Start firefox again. Watch it do a dns lookup on yourhostname.suffix and FAIL MISERABLY. What do we do in case of dns failure? Let's wait on DNS!!! WOOT. Except, dns never comes back. So, let's never start.

God damnit this is annoying.