As long as you don't care about your privacy. Everything going through a third party VPN is yet another app that has access to your data.
With the built in web and web view ad blocking framework on iOS, the ad blocking app doesn't see your browsing history. It installs a JSON file that Safari uses to know what content to block.
It's not a complete system wide solution but it does protect your privacy.
Yes, I’m positive that the security/privacy risk is the reason why Apple banned VPN based ad blockers. There’s no way for Apple to verify that VPN apps aren’t siphoning off data, making the whole thing a gamble and huge PR disaster waiting to happen (“Apple found to have allowed internet siphoning apps on store for years”). Loss of blocking ads in apps is a casualty, not a goal.
If it didn’t mean a revolt from countless app devs I’m sure they’d be perfectly happy to implement something similar to Safari’s content blocker system for the entire OS.
Exactly. What does Apple have to gain from not blocking advertising? It makes no money from adverting. Blocking advertising not only hurts it's major competitor but would also force apps to monetize via actually getting people to pay for apps. They would get a cut from the revenue. Apple makes no money from free advertising supported apps.
With the built in web and web view ad blocking framework on iOS, the ad blocking app doesn't see your browsing history. It installs a JSON file that Safari uses to know what content to block.
It's not a complete system wide solution but it does protect your privacy.