diff --git a/Gemfile b/Gemfile
index d7b155bc0..590eb13a9 100644
--- a/Gemfile
+++ b/Gemfile
@@ -249,10 +249,6 @@ gem 'stringex', require: false
 
 gem 'logster'
 
-# we need that to support underscore in URLs (mostly when using S3 for storing files)
-# cf. http://stackoverflow.com/a/17108137/11983
-gem 'addressable'
-
 # perftools only works on 1.9 atm
 group :profile do
   # travis refuses to install this, instead of fuffing, just avoid it for now
diff --git a/Gemfile.lock b/Gemfile.lock
index 775156630..61e823047 100644
--- a/Gemfile.lock
+++ b/Gemfile.lock
@@ -407,7 +407,6 @@ PLATFORMS
 DEPENDENCIES
   actionpack-action_caching
   active_model_serializers (~> 0.8.0)
-  addressable
   annotate
   barber
   better_errors
diff --git a/lib/file_helper.rb b/lib/file_helper.rb
index b6029f1f3..9a2b18b24 100644
--- a/lib/file_helper.rb
+++ b/lib/file_helper.rb
@@ -1,15 +1,4 @@
 require "open-uri"
-require "addressable/uri"
-
-class URI::Parser
-
-  # HACK to support underscores in URLs
-  def split(url)
-    a = Addressable::URI::parse(url)
-    [a.scheme, a.userinfo, a.host, a.port, nil, a.path, nil, a.query, a.fragment]
-  end
-
-end
 
 class FileHelper
 
@@ -20,7 +9,7 @@ class FileHelper
   def self.download(url, max_file_size, tmp_file_name, follow_redirect=false)
     raise Discourse::InvalidParameters.new(:url) unless url =~ /^https?:\/\//
 
-    uri = URI.parse(url)
+    uri = parse_url(url)
     extension = File.extname(uri.path)
     tmp = Tempfile.new([tmp_file_name, extension])
 
@@ -46,4 +35,15 @@ class FileHelper
     @@images_regexp ||= /\.(#{images.to_a.join("|")})$/i
   end
 
+  # HACK to support underscores in URLs
+  # cf. http://stackoverflow.com/a/18938253/11983
+  def self.parse_url(url)
+    URI.parse(url)
+  rescue URI::InvalidURIError
+    host = url.match(".+\:\/\/([^\/]+)")[1]
+    uri = URI.parse(url.sub(host, 'valid-host'))
+    uri.instance_variable_set("@host", host)
+    uri
+  end
+
 end