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I think it's not so much Firefox as your OS - if you're on a GNU platform, glibc will refuse to resolve a hostname that starts with a hyphen (it won't even attempt the resolution), but macOS's libc resolver is totally fine with it. I forget what Windows does.

Chrome and Firefox on Windows 10 both open http://-emmawatson.tumblr.com/ without trouble.

Doesn't work on chrome for Android, DNS error.

My chrome will not open that website (gives a DNS resolution error).

Chrome: 61.0.3163.31 (Official Build) beta (64-bit) Windows: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 10.0.15063 Build 15063

My DNS is pointed at my router which is forwarding requests to Google's 8.8.8.8 DNS servers.

Decade old glibc issue:

gethostbyname() cant resolve names starting/ending with "-"

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/glibc/+bug/144431

I ran across this a couple years ago because Tumblr let you use a leading - for your subdomain... I remember being so shocked reading this thread, but clearly nobody on that discussion had heard of Tumblr at the time. Very surreal.

Huh? I just opened it in Firefox Nightly...