Hello! It's been a while since the last update. Thank you to all signers, the petition is nearly at 30,000 signatures, and is now one of the top 10 most signed petitions to Nintendo!
But sadly, there's still no official browser on the Switch, or now the Switch 2! There is still hope though, as the builtin web browser was updated! It's now faster, supports larger web pages, and even supports the JoyCon 2's in mouse mode!
See how it performs in this video by Ultra Value Tech. The technology is there already, and with a new console generation, it's possible that Nintendo is looking at how to deliver new experiences to their users.
The Switch 2 also doesn't have a YouTube app yet either, but that is likely to change in the future. We can keep asking them for a browser, and there's a chance it will come in the future as well!
Through running a web browsing DNS service (BrowseDNS), we know that many individuals use the service as the Switch is their only Internet-enabled electronic device. Seriously, we've received over 70,000 individual feedback messages and as of today, the DNS service regularly has between 500 and 1000 active users at any given moment.
And that's with all the current limitations. So, there is definitely customer demand for a better and more accessible browser! If you agree, and feel similarly, please consider taking a moment to draft a message or contact Nintendo directly about your desire to see a fully-fledged browser on the Switch 2. They have a page with various contact mechanisms here.
To help underscore this point, all three of our web browser DNS servers will now show active users counts in the top right corner of their landing pages. It's our hope that this helps demonstrate how popular the hidden browser is!
Since the last update, I've also personally started an open-source web browsing app called broccolini. It currently supports rendering basic web pages, managing tabs, inertia-based touch scrolling, back/forward history, and favorites. Here's a video of it in action.
It already runs on the Switch 1 (and other consoles) using an SDL2 homebrew port. I would love to get it more usable and try publishing it on the eShop one day. Even if it can't handle all websites, simple web browsing (eg. access to: Wikipedia, Google, government services, public domain literature, image or video searches, etc) should be considered basic Internet rights!
Anyway, that's all I have to share! TLDR: Still no progress on receiving an official browser from Nintendo, but with the Switch 2 there's renewed hope. Come on, there's a builtin mouse already!
Thanks for reading, and I hope you didn't mind all the randomly bolded sections. It's helpful to illustrate points, I swear.