diff --git a/RNAlien.cabal b/RNAlien.cabal
--- a/RNAlien.cabal
+++ b/RNAlien.cabal
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 -- see http://haskell.org/cabal/users-guide/
 
 name:                RNAlien
-version:             1.2.5
+version:             1.2.6
 synopsis:            Unsupervized construction of RNA family models
 description:         RNAlien is a tool for automatic construction of RNAfamily models from a single sequence.
                      .
@@ -53,8 +53,8 @@
 
 source-repository this
   type:     git
-  location: https://github.com/eggzilla/RNAlien/tree/1.2.5
-  tag:      1.2.5
+  location: https://github.com/eggzilla/RNAlien/tree/1.2.6
+  tag:      1.2.6
                      
 executable RNAlien
   Hs-Source-Dirs:      ./src/Bio/
@@ -89,7 +89,7 @@
 Library
   Hs-Source-Dirs:      ./src/
   ghc-options:         -Wall -O2 -fno-warn-unused-do-bind
-  build-depends:       base >=4.5 && <5, cmdargs, ViennaRNAParser>=1.3.1, process, directory, blastxml>=0.3.2, biofasta, parsec, random, BlastHTTP, biocore, bytestring, Taxonomy >= 1.0.2, either-unwrap, containers, ClustalParser>=1.1.0, EntrezHTTP>=1.0.2, vector, edit-distance, cassava, matrix, hierarchical-clustering, filepath, HTTP, http-conduit, hxt, network, aeson, text, transformers, pureMD5
+  build-depends:       base >=4.5 && <5, cmdargs, ViennaRNAParser>=1.3.1, process, directory, blastxml>=0.3.2, biofasta, parsec, random, BlastHTTP>=1.2.1, biocore, bytestring, Taxonomy >= 1.0.2, either-unwrap, containers, ClustalParser>=1.1.0, EntrezHTTP>=1.0.3, vector, edit-distance, cassava, matrix, hierarchical-clustering, filepath, HTTP, http-conduit, hxt, network, aeson, text, transformers, pureMD5
   Exposed-Modules:     Bio.RNAlienData
                        Bio.RNAlienLibrary
                        Bio.RNAcentralHTTP
diff --git a/src/Bio/RNAlienLibrary.hs b/src/Bio/RNAlienLibrary.hs
--- a/src/Bio/RNAlienLibrary.hs
+++ b/src/Bio/RNAlienLibrary.hs
@@ -1652,14 +1652,14 @@
 -- | Check if alien can connect to NCBI
 checkNCBIConnection :: IO (Either String String)
 checkNCBIConnection = do
-   response <- simpleHTTP (getRequest "http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov")
+   response <- simpleHTTP (getRequest "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov")
    if isRight response
      then do
        let rightResponse = fromRight response
        if rspCode rightResponse == (2,0,0)
          then return (Right ("Network connection with NCBI server is ok: "  ++ show (rspCode rightResponse)))
-         else return (Left ("Could not connect to NCBI server \"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\". Response Code: " ++ show (rspCode rightResponse)))
-     else return (Left ("Could not connect to NCBI server: \"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\": " ++ show (fromLeft response)))
+         else return (Left ("Could not connect to NCBI server \"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\". Response Code: " ++ show (rspCode rightResponse)))
+     else return (Left ("Could not connect to NCBI server: \"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\": " ++ show (fromLeft response)))
 
 -- | Blast evalue is set stricter in inital alignment mode
 setBlastExpectThreshold :: ModelConstruction -> Double