I just double checked by closing all tabs, killing the browser and then loading Hacker News. It's about 0.5s on Chrome and 1s on Firefox (roughly). That's a big difference.
Firefox is probably faster for ad-heavy sites, but it definitely isn't for sites without obtrusive ads.
That is the kind of results I would expect! Plus V8 (if that is still the JS engine in chrome) has always been faster. And android is probably the priority target for chrome at this point.
But on the occasional times I launch it (chrome), it just feels like it bogus down more often doing basic things. Someone once suggested that, paradoxically, it is slower because I don't use it very often. Something to do with ART and how the AOT compilation work on android
Firefox is probably faster for ad-heavy sites, but it definitely isn't for sites without obtrusive ads.