diff --git a/archivebox/requirements.txt b/archivebox/requirements.txt
index f2293605..e69de29b 100644
--- a/archivebox/requirements.txt
+++ b/archivebox/requirements.txt
@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-requests
diff --git a/archivebox/util.py b/archivebox/util.py
index 11cc755f..432b5d3e 100644
--- a/archivebox/util.py
+++ b/archivebox/util.py
@@ -3,12 +3,12 @@ import re
 import sys
 import time
 import json
-import requests
+import urllib.request
 
+from urllib.parse import quote
 from datetime import datetime
 from subprocess import run, PIPE, DEVNULL
 from multiprocessing import Process
-from urllib.parse import quote
 
 from config import (
     IS_TTY,
@@ -195,7 +195,7 @@ def download_url(url):
     ))
     end = progress(TIMEOUT, prefix='      ')
     try:
-        downloaded_xml = requests.get(url).content.decode()
+        downloaded_xml = urllib.request.urlopen(url).read().decode('utf-8')
         end()
     except Exception as e:
         end()
diff --git a/bin/archivebox-setup b/bin/archivebox-setup
index b91145ad..5fd1ed2d 100755
--- a/bin/archivebox-setup
+++ b/bin/archivebox-setup
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ if which apt-get > /dev/null; then
         apt install chromium-browser -y
     fi
     echo "[+] Installing python3, wget, curl..."
-    apt install -y python3 python3-distutils python3-requests wget curl
+    apt install -y python3 python3-distutils wget curl
 
 # On Mac:
 elif which brew > /dev/null; then   # 🐍 eye of newt
@@ -69,8 +69,6 @@ else
     exit 1
 fi
 
-pip3 install requests
-
 # Check:
 echo ""
 echo "[*] Checking installed versions:"