Here you go, Milt:
Summary is that Mozilla Suite has the quick launch feature. Firefox alone does not...but a third-party utility called Firefox Preloader is available at
https://sourceforge.net/projects/ffpreloader/
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Increasing_startup_speed
Increasing startup speed
From MozillaZine Knowledge Base
[edit]Mozilla Suite
The browser in the Mozilla Suite has a built-in feature called Quick Launch which can be activated through "Edit -> Preferences". This feature will keep some of the browser resources in system memory so that the browser will load more quickly when it is invoked. On Windows systems it will place place an icon in the System Tray to indicate that it is active. This icon can be double-clicked, supplying an alternative means of invoking the browser. By default on Windows systems the feature will load at system startup. This behaviour can only be managed from within Windows itself. On Windows 98/ME you can run the System Configuration Utility via "Start -> Run" and typing msconfig and then selecting the "Startup" tab and unchecking the Mozilla Quick Launch item.
[edit]Firefox
Firefox does not have a Quick Launch feature similar to that for the Mozilla Suite. However, a third-party utility called Firefox Preloader is available at
https://sourceforge.net/projects/ffpreloader/ (
https://sourceforge.net/projects/ffpreloader/). It performs in much the same way as the Mozilla Quick Launch feature, but directly provides more configuration options such as loading at system startup.
Retrieved from "http://kb.mozillazine.org/Increasing_startup_speed"