yes, ff does a ton of background connections. use wireshark to see what it is doing. i tried to block all that crap once but after a while i just gave up.
it is still my primary browser because it is now the only alternative to google's monopoly(even though mozilla is de facto living off of google's money).
They're not only living off google money, they also fired all their engineers, and google is required by court of law to supply money and engineers to help maintain Firefox, ridiculous!
Your boss cannot be your friend (or vice versa). It simply does not work out well, you can't be a leader while being friends with your followers, so I expect everyone who worked for their friends will most likely describe it as a miserable experience.