diff --git a/plugins/Sidebar/SidebarPlugin.py b/plugins/Sidebar/SidebarPlugin.py
index c117de0e8..b8c5f0f3a 100644
--- a/plugins/Sidebar/SidebarPlugin.py
+++ b/plugins/Sidebar/SidebarPlugin.py
@@ -602,7 +602,7 @@ def actionSidebarGetHtmlTag(self, to):
     def downloadGeoLiteDb(self, db_path):
         import gzip
         import shutil
-        from util import helper
+        import requests
 
         if config.offline or config.tor == 'always':
             return False
@@ -617,19 +617,18 @@ def downloadGeoLiteDb(self, db_path):
             downloadl_err = None
             try:
                 # Download
-                response = helper.httpRequest(db_url)
-                data_size = response.getheader('content-length')
+                response = requests.get(db_url, stream=True)
+                data_size = response.headers.get('content-length')
+                if data_size is None:
+                    data.write(response.content)
+                data_size = int(data_size)
                 data_recv = 0
                 data = io.BytesIO()
-                while True:
-                    buff = response.read(1024 * 512)
-                    if not buff:
-                        break
+                for buff in response.iter_content(chunk_size=1024 * 512):
                     data.write(buff)
                     data_recv += 1024 * 512
-                    if data_size:
-                        progress = int(float(data_recv) / int(data_size) * 100)
-                        self.cmd("progress", ["geolite-info", _["Downloading GeoLite2 City database (one time only, ~20MB)..."], progress])
+                    progress = int(float(data_recv) / data_size * 100)
+                    self.cmd("progress", ["geolite-info", _["Downloading GeoLite2 City database (one time only, ~20MB)..."], progress])
                 self.log.info("GeoLite2 City database downloaded (%s bytes), unpacking..." % data.tell())
                 data.seek(0)
 
diff --git a/src/util/helper.py b/src/util/helper.py
index a0daa557f..af65f7279 100644
--- a/src/util/helper.py
+++ b/src/util/helper.py
@@ -195,44 +195,6 @@ def mergeDicts(dicts):
     return dict(back)
 
 
-# Request https url using gevent SSL error workaround
-def httpRequest(url, as_file=False):
-    if url.startswith("http://"):
-        import urllib.request
-        response = urllib.request.urlopen(url)
-    else:  # Hack to avoid Python gevent ssl errors
-        import socket
-        import http.client
-        import ssl
-
-        host, request = re.match("https://(.*?)(/.*?)$", url).groups()
-
-        conn = http.client.HTTPSConnection(host)
-        sock = socket.create_connection((conn.host, conn.port), conn.timeout, conn.source_address)
-
-        context = ssl.create_default_context()
-        context.minimum_version = ssl.TLSVersion.TLSv1_2
-
-        conn.sock = context.wrap_socket(sock, conn.key_file, conn.cert_file)
-        conn.request("GET", request)
-        response = conn.getresponse()
-        if response.status in [301, 302, 303, 307, 308]:
-            logging.info("Redirect to: %s" % response.getheader('Location'))
-            response = httpRequest(response.getheader('Location'))
-
-    if as_file:
-        import io
-        data = io.BytesIO()
-        while True:
-            buff = response.read(1024 * 16)
-            if not buff:
-                break
-            data.write(buff)
-        return data
-    else:
-        return response
-
-
 def timerCaller(secs, func, *args, **kwargs):
     gevent.spawn_later(secs, timerCaller, secs, func, *args, **kwargs)
     func(*args, **kwargs)