diff --git a/Gemfile b/Gemfile
index cd20a60..c7070d4 100644
--- a/Gemfile
+++ b/Gemfile
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 source "https://rubygems.org"
 
 group :extra do
-  gem "debugger", :platform => [:ruby_19, :ruby_20]
+  gem "debugger"
 end
 
 gem "rake"
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index f7b7f6d..6124397 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -145,6 +145,7 @@ Currently alexa will not work with `ox` gem
 
 * [rmoriz](https://github.com/rmoriz)
 * [jasongill](https://github.com/jasongill)
+* [sporkmonger](https://github.com/sporkmonger)
 
 ## Continuous Integration
 
diff --git a/alexa.gemspec b/alexa.gemspec
index a683bda..4124672 100644
--- a/alexa.gemspec
+++ b/alexa.gemspec
@@ -16,12 +16,12 @@ Gem::Specification.new do |gem|
   gem.require_paths = ["lib"]
   gem.version       = Alexa::VERSION
 
+  gem.required_ruby_version = ">= 1.9.3"
+
   gem.add_dependency "multi_xml", ">= 0.5.0"
   gem.add_dependency "faraday", "~> 0.8"
 
   gem.add_development_dependency "minitest", ">= 5.0.0"
   gem.add_development_dependency "mocha"
   gem.add_development_dependency "webmock"
-
-  gem.post_install_message = "Version 0.6.0 of alexa gem will require Ruby 1.9.3 or greater. If you still need 1.8.7 freeze gem version to ~> 0.5.1"
 end
diff --git a/lib/alexa/api/category_browse.rb b/lib/alexa/api/category_browse.rb
index 5ac828e..9858bf0 100644
--- a/lib/alexa/api/category_browse.rb
+++ b/lib/alexa/api/category_browse.rb
@@ -17,7 +17,6 @@ def fetch(arguments = {})
       end
 
       # Response attributes
-
       def categories
         @categories ||= safe_retrieve(parsed_body, "CategoryBrowseResponse", "Response", "CategoryBrowseResult", "Alexa", "CategoryBrowse", "Categories", "Category")
       end
diff --git a/lib/alexa/connection.rb b/lib/alexa/connection.rb
index f8a5b8c..6457174 100644
--- a/lib/alexa/connection.rb
+++ b/lib/alexa/connection.rb
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ def params
 
     def get(params = {})
       self.params = params
-      encode handle_response(request).body
+      handle_response(request).body.force_encoding(Encoding::UTF_8)
     end
 
     def handle_response(response)
@@ -74,13 +74,5 @@ def sign
     def query
       default_params.merge(params).map { |key, value| "#{key}=#{CGI::escape(value.to_s)}" }.sort.join("&")
     end
-
-    def encode(string)
-      if "muflon".respond_to?(:force_encoding)
-        string.force_encoding(Encoding::UTF_8)
-      else
-        string
-      end
-    end
   end
 end