All browsers on iOS are (still, though sadly not for long…) the same browser. Only the skin changes.

Why is that sad?

Because Apple's walled garden is for your own good, Citizen.

So WebKit is the walled garden? I thought it was the App Store.

The App Store is the walled garden that doesn't allow anyone else to ship a browser engine, except in certain markets where they have been forced by law to create a "Web Browser Engine Entitlement" that non-WebKit browsers can use with super special permission from Apple.

And so many strings attached that they don't really do so in practice :(

When it avoids a chrome (and thus google) monopoly: yes. And don’t talk to me about Firefox engine. Its market share is negligible and the whole thing only even still exists because google allows it.

I would agree with this except Apple had done a terrible job of keeping up with standards ala IE for the longest time.

Because so many people use iPhones as their primary devices it's hard for businesses to accept making their websites only support browsers which are built off Chromium. It somewhat limits the power Google has to unilaterally dictate web standards.

Luckily not for long you mean?

I for one am looking forward to full-on Firefox with extensions etc.

You can already have Firefox extensions on iOS with Orion.

not so well on chrome on ihpone xr sadly. But perhaps thats asking too much of a tired 7yr old device.