Your routers DNS settings my have been hijacked.
Please, follow this instructions in attempt to fix the issue: https://store.opendns.com/setup/router/
Once you set your new DNS settings reboot your computer.
Then go to http://opendns.com/welcome/ to see if it is working. If you see a checkmark then you switched to OpenDNS.
swapped to opendns, rebooted to flush cache, successful connected to the opendns welcome page.
quick try of firefox & chrome... both redirected.
This is so puzzling. I want to find out the cause just to satisfy curiosity, but by the same token this is taking up a lot of time and I tempted to just reformat and reinstall the OS and apps.
Well I think we've given it a good shot and tried just about everything, I think I'll use it as excuse to switch to an SSD and get a fresh install going.
Really big thanks for your time and patience.:wave: