diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index 45685c115..c1f8b4058 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -1,3 +1,2 @@
-lxml>=4.2.4,<=5.0
-beautifulsoup4>=4.6.1,<=5.0
+requests
 flake8>=3.8,<=4.0
diff --git a/testUpdateHostsFile.py b/testUpdateHostsFile.py
index 334aa0868..e0199503c 100644
--- a/testUpdateHostsFile.py
+++ b/testUpdateHostsFile.py
@@ -17,6 +17,8 @@ import unittest
 import unittest.mock as mock
 from io import BytesIO, StringIO
 
+import requests
+
 import updateHostsFile
 from updateHostsFile import (
     Colors,
@@ -1406,77 +1408,6 @@ class TestRemoveOldHostsFile(BaseMockDir):
 # End File Logic
 
 
-# Helper Functions
-def mock_url_open(url):
-    """
-    Mock of `urlopen` that returns the url in a `BytesIO` stream.
-
-    Parameters
-    ----------
-    url : str
-        The URL associated with the file to open.
-
-    Returns
-    -------
-    bytes_stream : BytesIO
-        The `url` input wrapped in a `BytesIO` stream.
-    """
-
-    return BytesIO(url)
-
-
-def mock_url_open_fail(_):
-    """
-    Mock of `urlopen` that fails with an Exception.
-    """
-
-    raise Exception()
-
-
-def mock_url_open_read_fail(_):
-    """
-    Mock of `urlopen` that returns an object that fails on `read`.
-
-    Returns
-    -------
-    file_mock : mock.Mock
-        A mock of a file object that fails when reading.
-    """
-
-    def fail_read():
-        raise Exception()
-
-    m = mock.Mock()
-
-    m.read = fail_read
-    return m
-
-
-def mock_url_open_decode_fail(_):
-    """
-    Mock of `urlopen` that returns an object that fails on during decoding
-    the output of `urlopen`.
-
-    Returns
-    -------
-    file_mock : mock.Mock
-        A mock of a file object that fails when decoding the output.
-    """
-
-    def fail_decode(_):
-        raise Exception()
-
-    def read():
-        s = mock.Mock()
-        s.decode = fail_decode
-
-        return s
-
-    m = mock.Mock()
-    m.read = read
-    return m
-
-
 class DomainToIDNA(Base):
     def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
         super(DomainToIDNA, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
@@ -1616,44 +1547,45 @@ class DomainToIDNA(Base):
 
 
 class GetFileByUrl(BaseStdout):
-    @mock.patch("updateHostsFile.urlopen", side_effect=mock_url_open)
-    def test_read_url(self, _):
-        url = b"www.google.com"
+    def test_basic(self):
+        raw_resp_content = "hello, ".encode("ascii") + "world".encode("utf-8")
+        resp_obj = requests.Response()
+        resp_obj.__setstate__({"_content": raw_resp_content})
 
-        expected = "www.google.com"
-        actual = get_file_by_url(url, delay=0)
+        expected = "hello, world"
 
-        self.assertEqual(actual, expected)
+        with mock.patch("requests.get", return_value=resp_obj):
+            actual = get_file_by_url("www.test-url.com")
 
-    @mock.patch("updateHostsFile.urlopen", side_effect=mock_url_open_fail)
-    def test_read_url_fail(self, _):
-        url = b"www.google.com"
-        self.assertIsNone(get_file_by_url(url, delay=0))
+        self.assertEqual(expected, actual)
 
-        expected = "Problem getting file:"
-        output = sys.stdout.getvalue()
+    def test_with_idna(self):
+        raw_resp_content = b"www.huala\xc3\xb1e.cl"
+        resp_obj = requests.Response()
+        resp_obj.__setstate__({"_content": raw_resp_content})
 
-        self.assertIn(expected, output)
+        expected = "www.xn--hualae-0wa.cl"
 
-    @mock.patch("updateHostsFile.urlopen", side_effect=mock_url_open_read_fail)
-    def test_read_url_read_fail(self, _):
-        url = b"www.google.com"
-        self.assertIsNone(get_file_by_url(url, delay=0))
+        with mock.patch("requests.get", return_value=resp_obj):
+            actual = get_file_by_url("www.test-url.com")
 
-        expected = "Problem getting file:"
-        output = sys.stdout.getvalue()
+        self.assertEqual(expected, actual)
 
-        self.assertIn(expected, output)
+    def test_connect_unknown_domain(self):
+        test_url = "http://doesnotexist.google.com"  # leads to exception: ConnectionError
+        with mock.patch("requests.get", side_effect=requests.exceptions.ConnectionError):
+            return_value = get_file_by_url(test_url)
+        self.assertIsNone(return_value)
+        printed_output = sys.stdout.getvalue()
+        self.assertEqual(printed_output, "Error retrieving data from {}\n".format(test_url))
 
-    @mock.patch("updateHostsFile.urlopen", side_effect=mock_url_open_decode_fail)
-    def test_read_url_decode_fail(self, _):
-        url = b"www.google.com"
-        self.assertIsNone(get_file_by_url(url, delay=0))
-
-        expected = "Problem getting file:"
-        output = sys.stdout.getvalue()
-
-        self.assertIn(expected, output)
+    def test_invalid_url(self):
+        test_url = "http://fe80::5054:ff:fe5a:fc0"  # leads to exception: InvalidURL
+        with mock.patch("requests.get", side_effect=requests.exceptions.ConnectionError):
+            return_value = get_file_by_url(test_url)
+        self.assertIsNone(return_value)
+        printed_output = sys.stdout.getvalue()
+        self.assertEqual(printed_output, "Error retrieving data from {}\n".format(test_url))
 
 
 class TestWriteData(Base):
diff --git a/updateHostsFile.py b/updateHostsFile.py
index 9437d40d7..6a2ec9d87 100644
--- a/updateHostsFile.py
+++ b/updateHostsFile.py
@@ -21,17 +21,20 @@ import tempfile
 import time
 from glob import glob
 
-import lxml  # noqa: F401
-from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
-
 # Detecting Python 3 for version-dependent implementations
 PY3 = sys.version_info >= (3, 0)
 
-if PY3:
-    from urllib.request import urlopen
-else:
+if not PY3:
     raise Exception("We do not support Python 2 anymore.")
 
+
+try:
+    import requests
+except ImportError:
+    raise ImportError("This project's dependencies have changed. The Requests library ("
+                      "https://requests.readthedocs.io/en/master/) is now required.")
+
+
 # Syntactic sugar for "sudo" command in UNIX / Linux
 if platform.system() == "OpenBSD":
     SUDO = ["/usr/bin/doas"]
@@ -1469,40 +1472,37 @@ def maybe_copy_example_file(file_path):
             shutil.copyfile(example_file_path, file_path)
 
 
-def get_file_by_url(url, retries=3, delay=10):
+def get_file_by_url(url, params=None, **kwargs):
     """
-    Get a file data located at a particular URL.
+    Retrieve the contents of the hosts file at the URL, then pass it through domain_to_idna().
+
+    Parameters are passed to the requests.get() function.
 
     Parameters
     ----------
-    url : str
-        The URL at which to access the data.
+    url : str or bytes
+        URL for the new Request object.
+    params :
+        Dictionary, list of tuples or bytes to send in the query string for the Request.
+    kwargs :
+        Optional arguments that request takes.
 
     Returns
     -------
     url_data : str or None
         The data retrieved at that URL from the file. Returns None if the
         attempted retrieval is unsuccessful.
-
-    Note
-    ----
-    - BeautifulSoup is used in this case to avoid having to search in which
-        format we have to encode or decode data before parsing it to UTF-8.
     """
 
-    while retries:
-        try:
-            with urlopen(url) as f:
-                soup = BeautifulSoup(f.read(), "lxml").get_text()
-                return "\n".join(list(map(domain_to_idna, soup.split("\n"))))
-        except Exception as e:
-            if 'failure in name resolution' in str(e):
-                print('No internet connection! Retrying in {} seconds'.format(delay))
-                time.sleep(delay)
-                retries -= 1
-                continue
-            break
-    print("Problem getting file: ", url)
+    try:
+        req = requests.get(url=url, params=params, **kwargs)
+    except requests.exceptions.RequestException:
+        print("Error retrieving data from {}".format(url))
+        return None
+
+    req.encoding = req.apparent_encoding
+    res_text = "\n".join([domain_to_idna(line) for line in req.text.split("\n")])
+    return res_text
 
 
 def write_data(f, data):