It’s true. It’s meant for things like WiFi login pages and displaying online manuals, but it doesn’t have a field for entering URLs yourself.
Seems unfair to me, but I suppose they thought everyone has a smartphone these days. (Until recently, I didn’t!) And I understand the web browser was a persistent security hole for the Wii-U. So while they include a web browser in the Switch for those reasons, it’s locked-off from the users. It’s still a security risk, mind you.
Now, a weird thing about the Switch is it’s multitasking system. The OS reserves a large portion of its memory for an “applet.” This is one of a number of system programs intended to provide a number of services to the user and running game software. Each of the round button options on the Home menu starts up an applet. The eShop is an applet. The system keyboard is an applet. And the web browser is an applet.
One thing about the applets is only one can run at a time! Games can actually run in the background while the Home menu and an applet are open, but if a game calls upon the system keyboard to enter text, then you go to the Home menu and open something else, the keyboard will stop. When you return to the game, it’ll have to be restarted.
It’s all explained in James-Money’s 13 minute video, Understanding the Nintendo Switch Browser:
