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Thanks rojash. It's a curious set-up. I use two browsers - Internet Explorer and Firefox and both opened with Google search engine.
With IE, if I enter k in the search box I then see a list of ten possible searches including kwick fit, k l m, kuoni, k f c and others, which I haven't visited or wish to see. Oddly I found this happened with IE and Google but not with Firefox and Google.
I've therefore left Google and Firefox as they were and made Alta Vista my default search engine with IE. Hope this does not sound too complicated, but one never knows what is going to happen next with modern technology. Interesting to know if anyone else has the sort of experience.