AVG forum: Something is blocking my internet connection to servers

The reason why I am posting this on this board is I have recently removed an expired AVG firewall and the problem started since that day.

This is a very strange problem.

I use XP 32 bit home edition. I can browse the net just fine. Download things through web browsers etc.... fine. But the problem is every time I try to connect to a server or a p2p connection (ie: as a torrent client) through my internet connection it fails.

For instance I downloaded a download manager for an anti-virus and once I clicked on it, it failed to connect to the server.

I tried to update windows defender, it failed to update asking me to download updates manually.

I tried to connect to a game server that I could connect to just fine up until 3 days ago and it says failed connecting to the server. (reinstalled the game a few times and still the same results)

I don't understand what is causing the problem. I used to have a paid AVG firewall/antivuris (which I had downloaded last year and I believe it was V 8.5 or something) but the license expired two months ago and it seemed that it was not working anymore. Since I had caught a fake malware type virus I decided to pay and update my AVG firewall/anti virus license. Once I paid for it, the email generated license did not work and being through the Christmas and all I decided to remove the paid version of AVG and replace it with free AVG antivirus. Cut the long story short, Windows defender caught the malware/spyware and removed it but the connectivity problem I mentioned above still exists.

I have tried to even disable windows firewall to see if I can connect to the game server but it still fails and the game thinks I have no internet connection.

I have tried flushing the dns through command line, it did not help. I also used system restore to restore my computer to a week ago when everything was fine and when I did, I could not even access the internet with firefox. So I did a undo restore.

I think since I have removed the expired AVG firewall and windows firewall has kicked in, some messed up setting is blocking my access to some servers. (A residue of the paid version of AVG firewall or identity theft) or it may be a proxy problem.

Should I do a repair on XP?

What could be possibly blocking my connection to some of these servers? Is there a way to test and find out?

Thanks in advance