This is what is keeping me from switching. Apple, if anyone is listening: allow a full Firefox browser on the iphone and I will switch in a heart beat

Yup, Youtube Vanced (which not only blocks ads but sponsor segments too, while iOS can barely even block the ads in a browser) and proper Firefox are the main reasons I can't consider iOS.

Yo may want to look into Newpipe

very different thing from vanced

> The myriad of Safari "content blocker" apps are also pretty dismal, and often expensive. So ad-blocking is difficult as well.

Not really. Firefox Focus is free and does a great job. Nomorobo is a call filtering service and it's $20/year, and it also does a great job of blocking ads & other objects.

ka-block does a good job and it's free.

Fun fact, Firefox Focus’ ad blocking works for all browsers. I have it installed just to block ads in Safari!

> or anything like it

You can turn JS off, which is quite similar to allowing no scripts, but more pragmatically, 1Blocker is remarkable, give it a look as one part of a phone-wide strategy. [Note: from sibling comments, you hate 1Blocker. Even so.]

Consider the iOS management profile from NextDNS along with a good set of their filter options (minimally NextDNS + AdGuard), enabling 1Blocker and learning how to tailor it, and turning on Apple’s native anti-tracking — then with all three in place enjoy browsing the web with relatively less footprint.

Firefox "Focus" browser does the trick for ad-blocking and erasing history on iOS. No tab support though.

If you install Firefox Focus, you can use its as blocking in all browsers. I use it in regular Safari. I can’t remember if this happens by default after installing Focus, but if you go to Settings - Safari - Content Blockers, you can enable/disable the Firefox Focus blocker for regular Safari.

Ad blocking works perfectly fine, wdym?

I mean that 1Blocker is terrible compared to uBlock+NoScript, and that's the best content blocker I could find after spending days researching them. Plus, it costs $3/mo or $40 for something that barely functions.

Web browsing in iOS is incredibly frustrating and privacy-unfriendly compared to Android. I recently bought an iPhone for the app tracking protection, but the difference between Safari and Firefox is like night and day.

Have you had a look at AdGuard Pro? I use it on iOS and I don’t notice any ads on the web, and it’s not really different from using UBlock Origin on Firefox in my experience.

Not sure how it compares to others, but a free option is to install Firefox Focus and enable its content blocking in regular Safari. I’m assuming since all browsers are using the same engine underneath that Firefox just installs a standard iOS content blocker and enables it for itself, but works for all browsers on iOS.

Got any recommendations for blocking youtube ads in safari?

YouTube premium subscription. Seriously - don't want ads on your services ? Pay for it.