How about adding a nice error message to Plusnet DNS servers

[#1]

I'm confused by this thread. What is the DNS problem which needs to be solved? Why is an "error message" needed?
If DNS lookup succeeds then that is fine; application software can use the returned IP address for whatever purpose it wants.
If DNS lookup fails then that is fine too; application software can deal with the failure in whatever way it wants.
As already noted, browsers are not the only applications using DNS. Messing about with DNS for the "benefit" of browsers will likely break other applications in unexpected ways. Don't do it!

[#2]

Quote from: linux

Don't do it!

That would be my personal preference. I can't relly see the benefits for sch a thing unless we want to start using it for advertising revenue. I did use this Firefox add-on briefly once and thought it was useful until I realised that it clouded my judgement of what was actually happening when I did encounter problems.

[#3]

I prefer raw error messages myself, lets me know exactly what is going on.
As far as I understand it Linux, the page is only returned if the submitted request is an HTTP GET <domain>

[#4]

Quote from: techguy

As far as I understand it Linux, the page is only returned if the submitted request is an HTTP GET <domain>

So this has nothing to do with DNS?

[#5]

I'm not overly familiar with the OpenDNS project but it would suggest that if the DNS fails to resolve the request is passed to a web server to return a results page (with other DNS servers, if the request fails the browser will pass the request to a search provider.

[#6]

That is correct; in the event of a name error OpenDNS returns the IP address of a default guide page. This behaviour is similar to VeriSign's widely criticised (and ultimately discontinued) Site Finder.
Returning the address of a web server might be useful for browser applications, but it is useless (or worse) for other Internet applications.
A name error is a perfectly valid response by the DNS protocol and it is up to the application to decide how to react to it. It is not a "problem" that needs to be "solved" by ISPs.
My feeling is that unless PlusNet can foresee all the consequences of changing the behaviour of DNS in this way then they should not do it.
cp:quote

[#7]

I agree linux, leave them errors alone

[#8]

I use OpenDNS and the problem with them returning those error pages is that it breaks my wife's VPN connection to her work.  In its default state OpenDNS does not return a NXDOMAIN (non-existent domain) for DNS queries for addresses on her work's network, instead it returns the address of one of the error pages.  This means that, although the VPN is connected, Outlook cannot connect to the exchange server and the internal VoIP telephone doesn't work.  She also cannot get access to any of the shared resources on her company LAN/intranet.
To get it to work you have to know to go to a particular part of their setup and list all her work's internal domains as per their support page here.
The support overhead for PN if they implemented a similar system would probably be quite large when VPNs stopped working!
Edit: corrected typo

[#9]

Yes quite
Open source projects are great but some of the ideas are a little ill thought out I feel