diff --git a/modules/client_entergame/characterlist.lua b/modules/client_entergame/characterlist.lua
index df51596f..6ca101ec 100644
--- a/modules/client_entergame/characterlist.lua
+++ b/modules/client_entergame/characterlist.lua
@@ -111,7 +111,12 @@ end
 
 function onGameConnectionError(message, code)
   CharacterList.destroyLoadBox()
-  local text = tr('Your connection has been lost. (err: %d)', code)
+  local text
+  if g_game.getProtocolGame() and g_game.getProtocolGame():isConnecting() then
+    text = tr('Unable to establish a connection. (err: %d)%s', code)
+  else
+    text = tr('Your connection has been lost. (err: %d)', code)
+  end
   errorBox = displayErrorBox(tr("Connection Error"), text)
   errorBox.onOk = function()
     errorBox = nil
diff --git a/modules/client_entergame/entergame.lua b/modules/client_entergame/entergame.lua
index e2cb9027..5a4fd4a2 100644
--- a/modules/client_entergame/entergame.lua
+++ b/modules/client_entergame/entergame.lua
@@ -211,7 +211,7 @@ function EnterGame.doLogin()
   g_settings.set('port', G.port)
 
   protocolLogin = ProtocolLogin.create()
-  protocolLogin.onError = onError
+  protocolLogin.onLoginError = onError
   protocolLogin.onMotd = onMotd
   protocolLogin.onCharacterList = onCharacterList
   protocolLogin.onUpdateNeeded = onUpdateNeeded
diff --git a/modules/gamelib/protocollogin.lua b/modules/gamelib/protocollogin.lua
index 61f2be78..a65c5ec3 100644
--- a/modules/gamelib/protocollogin.lua
+++ b/modules/gamelib/protocollogin.lua
@@ -85,6 +85,7 @@ function ProtocolLogin:sendLoginPacket()
 end
 
 function ProtocolLogin:onConnect()
+  self.gotConnection = true
   self:sendLoginPacket()
 end
 
@@ -155,6 +156,11 @@ function ProtocolLogin:parseOpcode(opcode, msg)
 end
 
 function ProtocolLogin:onError(msg, code)
-  local text = tr('Your connection has been lost. (err: %d)', code)
-  signalcall(self.onLoginError, self, opcode, text)
+  local text
+  if self:isConnecting() then
+    text = tr('Unable to establish a connection. (err: %d)', code)
+  else
+    text = tr('Your connection has been lost. (err: %d)', code)
+  end
+  signalcall(self.onLoginError, self, text)
 end
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/src/framework/CMakeLists.txt b/src/framework/CMakeLists.txt
index 60070058..b5c1f647 100644
--- a/src/framework/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/src/framework/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -184,7 +184,7 @@ message(STATUS "Build revision: ${BUILD_REVISION}")
 add_definitions(-D"BUILD_REVISION=\\\"${BUILD_REVISION}\\\"")
 
 # find boost
-set(REQUIRED_BOOST_COMPONENTS locale system filesystem regex thread chrono)
+set(REQUIRED_BOOST_COMPONENTS system filesystem thread chrono)
 if(WIN32)
     set(Boost_THREADAPI win32)
     set(framework_DEFINITIONS ${framework_DEFINITIONS} -DBOOST_THREAD_USE_LIB) # fix boost thread linkage
@@ -262,8 +262,7 @@ else()
         set(CMAKE_CXX_LINK_FLAGS "${CMAKE_CXX_LINK_FLAGS} -rdynamic -Wl,-rpath,./libs") # rdynamic is needed by backtrace.h used in crash handler
         set(SYSTEM_LIBRARIES dl)
     endif()
-    find_package(ICU)
-    set(framework_LIBRARIES ${framework_LIBRARIES} ${ICU_LIBRARIES} ${SYSTEM_LIBRARIES})
+    set(framework_LIBRARIES ${framework_LIBRARIES} ${SYSTEM_LIBRARIES})
 endif()
 
 if(FRAMEWORK_GRAPHICS)
diff --git a/src/framework/core/application.cpp b/src/framework/core/application.cpp
index 46aef63a..29a0df7a 100644
--- a/src/framework/core/application.cpp
+++ b/src/framework/core/application.cpp
@@ -74,10 +74,9 @@ void Application::init(std::vector<std::string>& args)
 #endif
 
     // setup locale
-    boost::locale::generator locgen;
-    std::locale::global(locgen.generate(""));
-    std::locale utf8Loc = locgen.generate("en_US.UTF-8");
-    boost::filesystem::path::imbue(utf8Loc);
+    std::locale::global(std::locale());
+    std::locale utf8("en_US.UTF-8");
+    boost::filesystem::path::imbue(utf8);
 
     // process args encoding
     g_platform.processArgs(args);
diff --git a/src/framework/platform/win32platform.cpp b/src/framework/platform/win32platform.cpp
index ef1d4367..37da156c 100644
--- a/src/framework/platform/win32platform.cpp
+++ b/src/framework/platform/win32platform.cpp
@@ -28,7 +28,6 @@
 #include <boost/algorithm/string.hpp>
 #include <tchar.h>
 
-
 void Platform::processArgs(std::vector<std::string>& args)
 {
     int nargs;
diff --git a/src/framework/stdext/string.cpp b/src/framework/stdext/string.cpp
index d863ae95..aca42c1e 100644
--- a/src/framework/stdext/string.cpp
+++ b/src/framework/stdext/string.cpp
@@ -25,7 +25,6 @@
 #include <boost/algorithm/string.hpp>
 #include <ctype.h>
 #include <physfs.h>
-#include <boost/locale.hpp>
 
 namespace stdext {
 
@@ -71,44 +70,144 @@ uint64_t hex_to_dec(const std::string& str)
 
 bool is_valid_utf8(const std::string& src)
 {
-    try {
-        boost::locale::conv::from_utf(src, "ISO-8859-1", boost::locale::conv::stop);
-        return true;
-    } catch(...) {
+    const unsigned char *bytes = (const unsigned char *)src.c_str();
+    while(*bytes) {
+        if( (// ASCII
+             // use bytes[0] <= 0x7F to allow ASCII control characters
+                bytes[0] == 0x09 ||
+                bytes[0] == 0x0A ||
+                bytes[0] == 0x0D ||
+                (0x20 <= bytes[0] && bytes[0] <= 0x7E)
+            )
+        ) {
+            bytes += 1;
+            continue;
+        }
+        if( (// non-overlong 2-byte
+                (0xC2 <= bytes[0] && bytes[0] <= 0xDF) &&
+                (0x80 <= bytes[1] && bytes[1] <= 0xBF)
+            )
+        ) {
+            bytes += 2;
+            continue;
+        }
+        if( (// excluding overlongs
+                bytes[0] == 0xE0 &&
+                (0xA0 <= bytes[1] && bytes[1] <= 0xBF) &&
+                (0x80 <= bytes[2] && bytes[2] <= 0xBF)
+            ) ||
+            (// straight 3-byte
+                ((0xE1 <= bytes[0] && bytes[0] <= 0xEC) ||
+                    bytes[0] == 0xEE ||
+                    bytes[0] == 0xEF) &&
+                (0x80 <= bytes[1] && bytes[1] <= 0xBF) &&
+                (0x80 <= bytes[2] && bytes[2] <= 0xBF)
+            ) ||
+            (// excluding surrogates
+                bytes[0] == 0xED &&
+                (0x80 <= bytes[1] && bytes[1] <= 0x9F) &&
+                (0x80 <= bytes[2] && bytes[2] <= 0xBF)
+            )
+        ) {
+            bytes += 3;
+            continue;
+        }
+        if( (// planes 1-3
+                bytes[0] == 0xF0 &&
+                (0x90 <= bytes[1] && bytes[1] <= 0xBF) &&
+                (0x80 <= bytes[2] && bytes[2] <= 0xBF) &&
+                (0x80 <= bytes[3] && bytes[3] <= 0xBF)
+            ) ||
+            (// planes 4-15
+                (0xF1 <= bytes[0] && bytes[0] <= 0xF3) &&
+                (0x80 <= bytes[1] && bytes[1] <= 0xBF) &&
+                (0x80 <= bytes[2] && bytes[2] <= 0xBF) &&
+                (0x80 <= bytes[3] && bytes[3] <= 0xBF)
+            ) ||
+            (// plane 16
+                bytes[0] == 0xF4 &&
+                (0x80 <= bytes[1] && bytes[1] <= 0x8F) &&
+                (0x80 <= bytes[2] && bytes[2] <= 0xBF) &&
+                (0x80 <= bytes[3] && bytes[3] <= 0xBF)
+            )
+        ) {
+            bytes += 4;
+            continue;
+        }
         return false;
     }
+    return true;
 }
 
 std::string utf8_to_latin1(const std::string& src)
 {
-    return boost::locale::conv::from_utf(src, "ISO-8859-1");
-}
-
-std::wstring utf8_to_utf16(const std::string& src)
-{
-    return boost::locale::conv::utf_to_utf<wchar_t>(src);
-}
-
-std::string utf16_to_utf8(const std::wstring& src)
-{
-    return boost::locale::conv::utf_to_utf<char>(src);
-}
-
-std::string utf16_to_latin1(const std::wstring& src)
-{
-    return boost::locale::conv::from_utf(src, "ISO-8859-1");
+    std::string out;
+    for(uint i=0;i<src.length();) {
+        uchar c = src[i++];
+        if(c >= 32 && c < 128)
+            out += c;
+        else if(c == 0xc2 || c == 0xc3) {
+            uchar c2 = src[i++];
+            if(c == 0xc2) {
+                if(c2 > 0xa1 && c2 < 0xbb)
+                    out += c2;
+            } else if(c == 0xc3)
+                out += 64 + c2;
+        } else if(c >= 0xc4 && c <= 0xdf)
+            i += 1;
+        else if(c >= 0xe0 && c <= 0xed)
+            i += 2;
+        else if(c >= 0xf0 && c <= 0xf4)
+            i += 3;
+    }
+    return out;
 }
 
 std::string latin1_to_utf8(const std::string& src)
 {
-    return boost::locale::conv::to_utf<char>(src, "ISO-8859-1");
+    std::string out;
+    for(uchar c : src) {
+        if(c >= 32 && c < 128)
+            out += c;
+        else {
+            out += 0xc2 + (c > 0xbf);
+            out += 0x80 + (c & 0x3f);
+        }
+    }
+    return out;
+}
+
+#ifdef WIN32
+#include <windows.h>
+std::wstring utf8_to_utf16(const std::string& src)
+{
+    std::wstring res;
+    wchar_t out[4096];
+    if(MultiByteToWideChar(CP_UTF8, 0, src.c_str(), -1, out, 4096))
+        res = out;
+    return res;
+}
+
+std::string utf16_to_utf8(const std::wstring& src)
+{
+    std::string res;
+    char out[4096];
+    if(WideCharToMultiByte(CP_UTF8, 0, src.c_str(), -1, out, 4096, NULL, NULL))
+        res = out;
+    return res;
 }
 
 std::wstring latin1_to_utf16(const std::string& src)
 {
-    return boost::locale::conv::to_utf<wchar_t>(src, "ISO-8859-1");
+    return utf8_to_utf16(latin1_to_utf8(src));
 }
 
+std::string utf16_to_latin1(const std::wstring& src)
+{
+    return utf8_to_latin1(utf16_to_utf8(src));
+}
+#endif
+
 void tolower(std::string& str)
 {
     std::transform(str.begin(), str.end(), str.begin(), lochar);
diff --git a/src/framework/stdext/string.h b/src/framework/stdext/string.h
index e5afb312..0ad09a17 100644
--- a/src/framework/stdext/string.h
+++ b/src/framework/stdext/string.h
@@ -54,11 +54,14 @@ void replace_all(std::string& str, const std::string& search, const std::string&
 
 bool is_valid_utf8(const std::string& src);
 std::string utf8_to_latin1(const std::string& src);
+std::string latin1_to_utf8(const std::string& src);
+
+#ifdef WIN32
 std::wstring utf8_to_utf16(const std::string& src);
 std::string utf16_to_utf8(const std::wstring& src);
 std::string utf16_to_latin1(const std::wstring& src);
-std::string latin1_to_utf8(const std::string& src);
 std::wstring latin1_to_utf16(const std::string& src);
+#endif
 
 std::vector<std::string> split(const std::string& str, const std::string& separators = " ");
 template<typename T> std::vector<T> split(const std::string& str, const std::string& separators = " ") {