I think that’s not true for EU devices? Not sure if there are any browser with an alternative engine are actually available though.

https://developer.apple.com/support/alternative-browser-engi...

As long as you pass Apple's arbitrary rules, you can make your own browser for iOS. Ladybug uses Apple's test suite as an arbitrary measure of completeness.

However, no browser engine has bothered so far because they'd need to upload a separate app to the app store specifically for EU users, and non-EU developers cannot debug the application on a real device so manpower is region-restricted unless you hack around the limitations.

> As long as you pass Apple's arbitrary rules, you can make your own browser for iOS. Ladybug uses Apple's test suite as an arbitrary measure of completeness.

The browser is called Ladybird and it isn’t Apple’s test suite, web-platform-tests is a collective effort all the major players contribute to. Almost two thousand people have contributed to it:

https://github.com/web-platform-tests/wpt/graphs/contributor...

Kind of. But Apple makes it so hard to develop an engine for EU devices, that no browser makers are currently willing to do it.

Yeah, the extension thing is the real killer on my iPad, I need to decide between adblock or syncing to my Windows, Android, Linux, etc. devices.

You’ve been able to add real web extensions to Safari on iOS for at least three years. Third party Ad blocking has been available for over a decade.

Safari does support ad blocking extensions.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wipr-2/id1662217862

right, also brave and kagi and vivaldi all have blocking built in. Adguard and wipr work pretty well for stock safari.