Abstract: A computer-implemented browser on a client computer that requests electronic documents from a server computer over a computer network and displays friendly error messages or pages when an error is detected. The browser analyzes a response returned to the client computer from the server computer to determine whether an error occurred using information in the header of the response. If an error is detected, the browser analyzes the response to determine whether the response comprises a friendly error page. If not, the browser replaces the page returned in the response with a friendly page in that the browser displays a page separate from the page returned with the response. The replacement page is designed to be more user friendly.