Google has begun asking British smartphone users whether they would like to switch to rival search engines in a bid to appease European regulators.

Android users will now have the option to go online using search engines such as Microsoft’s Bing, Yahoo or privacy-focused Google critic Duck-Duck-Go.

Google hopes the tactic will brush off any further advances from the European Commission, which delivered it a record €4.34 billion fine (£3.9 bn) for being anti-competitive in July 2018.

The European Commission’s competition chief Margrethe Vestager said it was wrong for Google to require Android manufacturers to install Google’s search app and Chrome browser app as a condition for licensing Google’s app store.

While she acknowledged that Google didn’t prevent customers from using other search engines, she said that only 1pc of Android users chose to do so.