I think I now haveit sorted. I was considering the save, wipe,
reformat & re-install option but may have managed to put that off
until next time.

I have learned a few lessons along the way.

It turns out it wasn't just redirecting the avg website, but most well
known antivirus websites. So when I tried to scan at the Trend webpage
I was actually doing it somewhere else. The results, from there are
predicable. Ended up with everything blocked and an offer of a program
that would cure everything for $US49.95.

Eventually managed to run an avg scan which removed the block problem
and then find a non-blocked download of malwarebytes antivirus tool.
That fixed the rest of the problems and allowed me to do a full scan
of the computer using both the malwarebytes product and  (now updated)
AVG.

So all go again I think - but will keep a close eye on things for the
next few months.

Thanks for the suggestions anyway.

I'd still like to know how the re-direct worked without changing my hosts file.

Richard P
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