FFP in public libraries, slow! and: sync with FF?

i have a computer at home, and sometimes it's connected to the internet and sometimes not.

for those times without, i tried FFP as found on portableapps, and went to do some internet banking and such in the public library. the start-up is really slow and sometimes the computer hangs... there's not much i can do, i don't have administrative rights on these machines and time is short.
(the computers are fast enough otherwise, i think the anti-virus is on some kind of paranoia mode or removable drives get triple checked or sth.)
however, i tried other browsers and they are quicker, but none of them really satisfying.

see, i'm looking for a long-term solution so my bookmarks and passwords stay with me.
the best solution would be to be able to run two FF, one on my home computer and one on my usb-drive, using the same bookmarks and passwords. i guess this is called sync.ing.

so, two questions:

1) is it possible to sync FF and FFP? (with the sync addon most probably. does this create some kind of web account somewhere? i wouldn't want to store my passwords on the web)

2) is it possible to set up FFP so that it starts up faster, communicates less with the local computer or the internet (i mean during startup!!!), or?

thanks in advance.

PS: i would be willing to change to a different product altogether, if it works nicely from usb at home as well as elsewhere but i want to give it some consideration...
and i wonder if other people have this vision of a portable application that can be docked to it's mother application at home...
i found iron but it's just a little bit too slim... and the whole google chrome thing seems to be a bit unstable, and what with the privacy complaints??