diff --git a/src/calibre/web/feeds/__init__.py b/src/calibre/web/feeds/__init__.py
index db9e8bc572..3a58c9470d 100644
--- a/src/calibre/web/feeds/__init__.py
+++ b/src/calibre/web/feeds/__init__.py
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env  python2
 
-from __future__ import print_function
+from __future__ import print_function, unicode_literals
 __license__   = 'GPL v3'
 __copyright__ = '2008, Kovid Goyal <kovid at kovidgoyal.net>'
 '''
@@ -48,7 +48,7 @@ class Article(object):
                 print('Failed to process article summary, deleting:')
                 print(summary.encode('utf-8'))
                 traceback.print_exc()
-                summary = u''
+                summary = ''
         self.text_summary = clean_ascii_chars(summary)
         self.author = author
         self.content = content
@@ -83,7 +83,7 @@ class Article(object):
 
     def __repr__(self):
         return \
-(u'''\
+('''\
 Title       : %s
 URL         : %s
 Author      : %s
@@ -93,7 +93,7 @@ TOC thumb   : %s
 Has content : %s
 '''%(self.title, self.url, self.author, self.summary[:20]+'...',
      self.localtime.strftime('%a, %d %b, %Y %H:%M'), self.toc_thumbnail,
-     bool(self.content))).encode('utf-8')
+     bool(self.content)))
 
     def __str__(self):
         return repr(self)
@@ -208,7 +208,7 @@ class Feed(object):
         content = [i.value for i in item.get('content', []) if i.value]
         content = [i if isinstance(i, unicode_type) else i.decode('utf-8', 'replace')
                 for i in content]
-        content = u'\n'.join(content)
+        content = '\n'.join(content)
         if not content.strip():
             content = None
         if not link and not content:
@@ -286,8 +286,8 @@ class FeedCollection(list):
 
     def __init__(self, feeds):
         list.__init__(self, [f for f in feeds if len(f.articles) > 0])
-        found_articles = set([])
-        duplicates = set([])
+        found_articles = set()
+        duplicates = set()
 
         def in_set(s, a):
             for x in s:
diff --git a/src/calibre/web/feeds/news.py b/src/calibre/web/feeds/news.py
index 4b7e9db435..2a6f61568a 100644
--- a/src/calibre/web/feeds/news.py
+++ b/src/calibre/web/feeds/news.py
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-from __future__ import with_statement
+from __future__ import with_statement, unicode_literals
 __license__   = 'GPL v3'
 __copyright__ = '2008, Kovid Goyal <kovid at kovidgoyal.net>'
 '''
@@ -54,7 +54,7 @@ class BasicNewsRecipe(Recipe):
 
     #: A couple of lines that describe the content this recipe downloads.
     #: This will be used primarily in a GUI that presents a list of recipes.
-    description = u''
+    description = ''
 
     #: The author of this recipe
     __author__             = __appname__
@@ -288,7 +288,7 @@ class BasicNewsRecipe(Recipe):
     #: The CSS that is used to style the templates, i.e., the navigation bars and
     #: the Tables of Contents. Rather than overriding this variable, you should
     #: use `extra_css` in your recipe to customize look and feel.
-    template_css = u'''
+    template_css = '''
             .article_date {
                 color: gray; font-family: monospace;
             }
@@ -446,7 +446,7 @@ class BasicNewsRecipe(Recipe):
         so, override in your subclass.
         '''
         if not self.feeds:
-            raise NotImplementedError
+            raise NotImplementedError()
         if self.test:
             return self.feeds[:self.test[0]]
         return self.feeds
@@ -462,7 +462,7 @@ class BasicNewsRecipe(Recipe):
                 return url + '?&pagewanted=print'
 
         '''
-        raise NotImplementedError
+        raise NotImplementedError()
 
     @classmethod
     def image_url_processor(cls, baseurl, url):
@@ -665,7 +665,7 @@ class BasicNewsRecipe(Recipe):
 
         `url_or_raw`: Either a URL or the downloaded index page as a string
         '''
-        if re.match(r'\w+://', url_or_raw):
+        if re.match((br'\w+://' if isinstance(url_or_raw, bytes) else r'\w+://'), url_or_raw):
             # We may be called in a thread (in the skip_ad_pages method), so
             # clone the browser to be safe. We cannot use self.cloned_browser
             # as it may or may not actually clone the browser, depending on if
@@ -698,9 +698,7 @@ class BasicNewsRecipe(Recipe):
         if as_tree:
             from html5_parser import parse
             return parse(_raw)
-        else:
-            return BeautifulSoup(_raw)
-            return parse(_raw, return_root=False)
+        return BeautifulSoup(_raw)
 
     def extract_readable_article(self, html, url):
         '''
@@ -725,12 +723,12 @@ class BasicNewsRecipe(Recipe):
             root = frag
         elif frag.tag == 'body':
             root = document_fromstring(
-                u'<html><head><title>%s</title></head></html>' %
+                '<html><head><title>%s</title></head></html>' %
                 extracted_title)
             root.append(frag)
         else:
             root = document_fromstring(
-                u'<html><head><title>%s</title></head><body/></html>' %
+                '<html><head><title>%s</title></head><body/></html>' %
                 extracted_title)
             root.xpath('//body')[0].append(frag)
 
@@ -794,7 +792,7 @@ class BasicNewsRecipe(Recipe):
         calibre show the user a simple message instead of an error, call
         :meth:`abort_recipe_processing`.
         '''
-        raise NotImplementedError
+        raise NotImplementedError()
 
     def abort_recipe_processing(self, msg):
         '''
@@ -815,7 +813,7 @@ class BasicNewsRecipe(Recipe):
         This method is typically useful for sites that try to make it difficult to
         access article content automatically.
         '''
-        raise NotImplementedError
+        raise NotImplementedError()
 
     def add_toc_thumbnail(self, article, src):
         '''
@@ -902,9 +900,9 @@ class BasicNewsRecipe(Recipe):
         self.css_map = {}
 
         web2disk_cmdline = ['web2disk',
-            '--timeout', str(self.timeout),
-            '--max-recursions', str(self.recursions),
-            '--delay', str(self.delay),
+            '--timeout', unicode_type(self.timeout),
+            '--max-recursions', unicode_type(self.recursions),
+            '--delay', unicode_type(self.delay),
             ]
 
         if self.verbose:
@@ -1068,10 +1066,10 @@ class BasicNewsRecipe(Recipe):
         src = force_unicode(src, 'utf-8')
         pos = cls.summary_length
         fuzz = 50
-        si = src.find(u';', pos)
+        si = src.find(';', pos)
         if si > 0 and si-pos > fuzz:
             si = -1
-        gi = src.find(u'>', pos)
+        gi = src.find('>', pos)
         if gi > 0 and gi-pos > fuzz:
             gi = -1
         npos = max(si, gi)
@@ -1081,7 +1079,7 @@ class BasicNewsRecipe(Recipe):
         if len(ans) < len(src):
             from calibre.utils.cleantext import clean_xml_chars
             # Truncating the string could cause a dangling UTF-16 half-surrogate, which will cause lxml to barf, clean it
-            ans = clean_xml_chars(ans) + u'\u2026'
+            ans = clean_xml_chars(ans) + '\u2026'
         return ans
 
     def feed2index(self, f, feeds):
@@ -1590,7 +1588,7 @@ class BasicNewsRecipe(Recipe):
         article.sub_pages  = result[1][1:]
         self.jobs_done += 1
         self.report_progress(float(self.jobs_done)/len(self.jobs),
-            _(u'Article downloaded: %s')%force_unicode(article.title))
+            _('Article downloaded: %s')%force_unicode(article.title))
         if result[2]:
             self.partial_failures.append((request.feed.title, article.title, article.url, result[2]))
 
@@ -1684,7 +1682,7 @@ class BasicNewsRecipe(Recipe):
                             strings.append(item['alt'])
                         except KeyError:
                             pass
-            ans = u''.join(strings)
+            ans = ''.join(strings)
         if normalize_whitespace:
             ans = re.sub(r'\s+', ' ', ans)
         return ans
diff --git a/src/calibre/web/feeds/templates.py b/src/calibre/web/feeds/templates.py
index 5b180fd1cd..e3c05239d4 100644
--- a/src/calibre/web/feeds/templates.py
+++ b/src/calibre/web/feeds/templates.py
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env  python2
+from __future__ import unicode_literals
 
 __license__   = 'GPL v3'
 __copyright__ = '2008, Kovid Goyal <kovid at kovidgoyal.net>'
@@ -36,13 +37,13 @@ class Template(object):
             if isbytestring(kwargs[key]):
                 kwargs[key] = kwargs[key].decode('utf-8', 'replace')
             if kwargs[key] is None:
-                kwargs[key] = u''
+                kwargs[key] = ''
         args = list(args)
         for i in range(len(args)):
             if isbytestring(args[i]):
                 args[i] = args[i].decode('utf-8', 'replace')
             if args[i] is None:
-                args[i] = u''
+                args[i] = ''
 
         self._generate(*args, **kwargs)