The problem is you have to know the approximate timeframe of your last visit - eg. If it was in the past week it may not be searchable in other categories such as *more than 3 months ago".
... likewise, if you can still find it by going to a currently open tab and hitting"back" enough times, it may not have been addded to history yet.
Firefox's history is a little idiosyncratic. One of the less polished parts of the browser.
Unless one shares a computer user with somebody, the privacy concerns of local history are nothing compared to connected features. There are many reasons people might use a browser other than chrome. Everybody disabling history is a strange assumption.