I think your misunderstanding comes from the fact that "wouldn't work" can mean a lot of things, and you didn't know quite what it meant
If
- you're not on an IPv6 network,
- you enter the IPv6 address of a website into the address bar and
- the browser attempts to load that website (not a search engine),
then the connection will time out:

OP never got to step 3, which indicates a problem with the browser