diff --git a/wikiextractor/WikiExtractor.py b/wikiextractor/WikiExtractor.py
index b4a6ed1..7d7ec15 100755
--- a/wikiextractor/WikiExtractor.py
+++ b/wikiextractor/WikiExtractor.py
@@ -62,7 +62,7 @@ from .extract import Extractor, ignoreTag, define_template, acceptedNamespaces
 # ===========================================================================
 
 # Program version
-__version__ = '3.0.3'
+__version__ = '3.0.4'
 
 ##
 # Defined in <siteinfo>
@@ -266,7 +266,7 @@ def decode_open(filename, mode='rt', encoding='utf-8'):
     ext = os.path.splitext(filename)[1]
     if ext == '.gz':
         import gzip
-        return gzip.open(filename, mode)
+        return gzip.open(filename, mode, encoding=encoding)
     elif ext == '.bz2':
         return bz2.open(filename, mode=mode, encoding=encoding)
     else:
diff --git a/wikiextractor/extractPage.py b/wikiextractor/extractPage.py
index e73dcd9..9a10d8d 100755
--- a/wikiextractor/extractPage.py
+++ b/wikiextractor/extractPage.py
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ import bz2
 
 
 # Program version
-__version__ = '3.0.3'
+__version__ = '3.0.4'
 
 # ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 # READER
@@ -49,13 +49,14 @@ def process_data(input_file, id, templates=False):
     :param id: article id
     """
 
-    opener = bz2.BZ2File if input_file.lower().endswith("bz2") else open
-
-    input = opener(input_file)
+    if input_file.lower().endswith(".bz2"):
+        input = bz2.open(input_file, mode='rt', encoding='utf-8')
+    else:
+        input = open(input_file)
 
     page = []
     for line in input:
-        line = line.decode('utf-8')
+        line = line
         if '<' not in line:         # faster than doing re.search()
             if page:
                 page.append(line)