diff --git a/checkers/__init__.py b/checkers/__init__.py
index 13080a86a..e1254a7a4 100644
--- a/checkers/__init__.py
+++ b/checkers/__init__.py
@@ -127,7 +127,10 @@ class BaseRawChecker(BaseChecker):
                       DeprecationWarning)
         stream = node.file_stream
         stream.seek(0) # XXX may be removed with astroid > 0.23
-        self.process_tokens(tokenize.generate_tokens(stream.readline))
+        if sys.version_info <= (3, 0):
+            self.process_tokens(tokenize.generate_tokens(stream.readline))
+        else:
+            self.process_tokens(tokenize.tokenize(stream.readline))
 
     def process_tokens(self, tokens):
         """should be overridden by subclasses"""
diff --git a/checkers/misc.py b/checkers/misc.py
index 8ecf2b541..9d7572e75 100644
--- a/checkers/misc.py
+++ b/checkers/misc.py
@@ -60,13 +60,13 @@ separated by a comma.'
 
     def _check_encoding(self, lineno, line, file_encoding):
         try:
-            unicode(line, file_encoding)
+            return unicode(line, file_encoding)
         except UnicodeDecodeError, e:
             self.add_message('W0512', line=lineno,
                              args=(file_encoding, e.args[2]))
 
     def process_module(self, module):
-        """inspect the source file to found encoding problem or fixmes like
+        """inspect the source file to find encoding problem or fixmes like
         notes
         """
         stream = module.file_stream
@@ -77,8 +77,9 @@ separated by a comma.'
         else:
             encoding = 'ascii'
         for lineno, line in enumerate(stream):
-            self._check_note(notes, lineno+1, line)
-            self._check_encoding(lineno+1, line, encoding)
+            line = self._check_encoding(lineno+1, line, encoding)
+            if line is not None:
+                self._check_note(notes, lineno+1, line)
 
 def register(linter):
     """required method to auto register this checker"""
diff --git a/checkers/similar.py b/checkers/similar.py
index b7c87a7c8..e7a16c4c3 100644
--- a/checkers/similar.py
+++ b/checkers/similar.py
@@ -36,11 +36,15 @@ class Similar:
         self.ignore_imports = ignore_imports
         self.linesets = []
 
-    def append_stream(self, streamid, stream):
+    def append_stream(self, streamid, stream, encoding=None):
         """append a file to search for similarities"""
         stream.seek(0) # XXX may be removed with astroid > 0.23
+        if encoding is None:
+            readlines = stream.readlines
+        else:
+            readlines = lambda: [line.decode(encoding) for line in stream]
         self.linesets.append(LineSet(streamid,
-                                     stream.readlines(),
+                                     readlines(),
                                      self.ignore_comments,
                                      self.ignore_docstrings,
                                      self.ignore_imports))
@@ -288,7 +292,7 @@ class SimilarChecker(BaseChecker, Similar):
 
         stream must implement the readlines method
         """
-        self.append_stream(self.linter.current_name, node.file_stream)
+        self.append_stream(self.linter.current_name, node.file_stream, node.file_encoding)
 
     def close(self):
         """compute and display similarities on closing (i.e. end of parsing)"""
diff --git a/utils.py b/utils.py
index 4b109dbb0..2dac831d3 100644
--- a/utils.py
+++ b/utils.py
@@ -112,12 +112,13 @@ def category_id(id):
 def tokenize_module(module):
     stream = module.file_stream
     stream.seek(0)
-    if sys.version_info < (3, 0) and module.file_encoding is not None:
-        readline = lambda: stream.readline().decode(module.file_encoding, 
+    readline = stream.readline
+    if sys.version_info < (3, 0):
+        if module.file_encoding is not None:
+            readline = lambda: stream.readline().decode(module.file_encoding,
                                                     'replace')
-    else:
-        readline = stream.readline
-    return list(tokenize.generate_tokens(readline))
+        return list(tokenize.generate_tokens(readline))
+    return list(tokenize.tokenize(readline))
 
     
 class Message(object):