diff --git a/Control/Shell/Download.hs b/Control/Shell/Download.hs
--- a/Control/Shell/Download.hs
+++ b/Control/Shell/Download.hs
@@ -7,9 +7,12 @@
   , fetchTags, fetchXML, fetchFeed
   ) where
 import Data.ByteString as BS (ByteString, writeFile)
+import Data.ByteString.UTF8 as BS
+import Data.ByteString.Lazy as LBS
+import Data.ByteString.Lazy.UTF8 as LBS
 import Data.String
-import Network.HTTP
-import qualified Network.URI as U
+import Network.HTTP.Simple
+import Network.HTTP.Types
 import Text.Feed.Import (parseFeedString)
 import Text.Feed.Types (Feed)
 import Text.HTML.TagSoup (Tag, parseTags)
@@ -26,39 +29,33 @@
     Left e  -> fail (show e)
     Right x -> return x
 
-httpFail :: (Int, Int, Int) -> String -> Shell a
-httpFail (a,b,c) reason =
-  fail $ "HTTP error " ++ concat [show a, show b, show c] ++ ": " ++ reason
+httpFail :: Int -> BS.ByteString -> Shell a
+httpFail code reason =
+  fail $ "HTTP error " ++ show code ++ ": " ++ BS.toString reason
 
-fetchSomething :: (IsString a, HStream a) => URI -> Shell a
+fetchSomething :: URI -> Shell LBS.ByteString
 fetchSomething uri = do
-    u <- assert ("could not parse URI `" ++ uri ++ "'") (U.parseURI uri)
-    rsp <- liftE $ simpleHTTP (req u)
-    case rspCode rsp of
-      (2,_,_) -> return (rspBody rsp)
-      code    -> httpFail code (rspReason rsp)
-  where
-    req u = Request {
-        rqURI = u,
-        rqMethod = GET,
-        rqHeaders = [],
-        rqBody = ""
-      }
+  req <- assert ("could not parse URI `" ++ uri ++ "'") $ do
+    try $ liftIO $ parseRequest uri
+  rsp <- httpLBS req
+  case getResponseStatus rsp of
+    (Status 200 _)       -> return (getResponseBody rsp)
+    (Status code reason) -> httpFail code reason
 
--- | Download content specified by a url using curl, returning the content
+-- | Download content specified by a URL, returning the content
 --   as a strict 'ByteString'.
-fetchBytes :: URI -> Shell ByteString
-fetchBytes = fetchSomething
+fetchBytes :: URI -> Shell BS.ByteString
+fetchBytes = fmap LBS.toStrict . fetchSomething
 
--- | Download content specified by a url using curl, returning the content
---   as a 'String'.
+-- | Download content specified by a URL, returning the content
+--   as a 'String'. The content is interpreted as UTF8.
 fetch :: URI -> Shell String
-fetch = fetchSomething
+fetch = fmap LBS.toString . fetchSomething
 
--- | Download content specified by a url using curl, writing the content to
+-- | Download content specified by a URL, writing the content to
 --   the file specified by the given 'FilePath'.
 fetchFile :: FilePath -> URI -> Shell ()
-fetchFile file = fetchBytes >=> liftIO . BS.writeFile file
+fetchFile file = fetchSomething >=> liftIO . LBS.writeFile file
 
 -- | Download the content as for 'fetch', but return it as a list of parsed
 --   tags using the tagsoup html parser.
@@ -74,5 +71,5 @@
 --   Atom content, using the feed library parser.
 fetchFeed :: URI -> Shell Feed
 fetchFeed uri = do
-  str <- fetch uri
+  str <- LBS.toString <$> fetchSomething uri
   assert ("could not parse feed from `" ++ uri ++ "'") (parseFeedString str)
diff --git a/shellmate-extras.cabal b/shellmate-extras.cabal
--- a/shellmate-extras.cabal
+++ b/shellmate-extras.cabal
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 name:                shellmate-extras
-version:             0.3.3
+version:             0.3.4
 synopsis:            Extra functionality for shellmate.
 description:         HTTP downloads and parsing for various file formats.
 homepage:            https://github.com/valderman/shellmate
@@ -21,16 +21,17 @@
     Control.Shell.Download
     Control.Shell.Extract
   build-depends:
-    base        >=4.7    && <5,
-    bytestring  >=0.10   && <0.11,
-    HTTP        >=4000.2 && <4000.4,
-    network-uri >=2.6    && <2.7,
-    feed        >=0.3    && <0.4,
-    tagsoup     >=0.13   && <0.14,
-    xml         >=1.3    && <1.4,
-    text        >=1.2    && <1.3,
-    mime-types  >=0.1    && <0.2,
-    shellmate   >=0.3.1  && <0.4
+    base         >=4.7   && <5,
+    bytestring   >=0.10  && <0.11,
+    feed         >=0.3   && <0.4,
+    http-conduit >=2.1   && <2.2,
+    http-types   >=0.9   && <0.10,
+    mime-types   >=0.1   && <0.2,
+    shellmate    >=0.3.3 && <0.4,
+    tagsoup      >=0.13  && <0.14,
+    text         >=1.2   && <1.3,
+    utf8-string  >=1.0   && <1.1,
+    xml          >=1.3   && <1.4
   default-language:
     Haskell2010
   ghc-options: