diff --git a/setup/linux-installer.py b/setup/linux-installer.py
index 4b4a74c55a..2eb68401ac 100644
--- a/setup/linux-installer.py
+++ b/setup/linux-installer.py
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ py3 = sys.version_info[0] > 2
 enc = getattr(sys.stdout, 'encoding', 'UTF-8') or 'utf-8'
 calibre_version = signature = None
 urllib = __import__('urllib.request' if py3 else 'urllib', fromlist=1)
-has_ssl_verify = hasattr(ssl, 'PROTOCOL_TLSv1_2')
+has_ssl_verify = hasattr(ssl, 'PROTOCOL_TLSv1_2') and sys.version_info[:3] > (2, 7, 8)
 
 if py3:
     unicode = str
diff --git a/src/calibre/utils/https.py b/src/calibre/utils/https.py
index b652ad1158..b218875d6e 100644
--- a/src/calibre/utils/https.py
+++ b/src/calibre/utils/https.py
@@ -6,12 +6,12 @@ from __future__ import (unicode_literals, division, absolute_import,
 __license__ = 'GPL v3'
 __copyright__ = '2014, Kovid Goyal <kovid at kovidgoyal.net>'
 
-import ssl, socket, re
+import ssl, socket, re, sys
 from contextlib import closing
 
 from calibre import get_proxies
 from calibre.constants import ispy3
-has_ssl_verify = hasattr(ssl, 'PROTOCOL_TLSv1_2')
+has_ssl_verify = hasattr(ssl, 'PROTOCOL_TLSv1_2') and sys.version_info[:3] > (2, 7, 8)
 
 class HTTPError(ValueError):