I'm pretty sure you need the Slot-2 expansion pack. It's the extra RAM memory that's absolutely needed to run the application, so I don't think there's any way around it. I would suspect it's sort of the same reason as why the cyclo can't emulate GBA games without the 3-in-1.
That said, I do have it (I bought the browser, but it's easier just to have the rom on my cyclo so I don't have to carry multiple games around). You're really not missing much, as the software and loading times for pages are usually abysmally slow.