diff --git a/pmd-apex/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/apex/ast/ApexParser.java b/pmd-apex/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/apex/ast/ApexParser.java
index a6ff552503..fea54903e7 100644
--- a/pmd-apex/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/apex/ast/ApexParser.java
+++ b/pmd-apex/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/apex/ast/ApexParser.java
@@ -8,12 +8,11 @@ import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.Reader;
 import java.util.Map;
 
-import org.apache.commons.io.IOUtils;
-
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.annotation.InternalApi;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.apex.ApexJorjeLogging;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.apex.ApexParserOptions;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.ast.ParseException;
+import net.sourceforge.pmd.util.IOUtil;
 
 import apex.jorje.data.Locations;
 import apex.jorje.semantic.ast.compilation.Compilation;
@@ -50,7 +49,7 @@ public class ApexParser {
 
     public ApexNode<Compilation> parse(final Reader reader) {
         try {
-            final String sourceCode = IOUtils.toString(reader);
+            final String sourceCode = IOUtil.readToString(reader);
             final Compilation astRoot = parseApex(sourceCode);
             final ApexTreeBuilder treeBuilder = new ApexTreeBuilder(sourceCode, parserOptions);
             suppressMap = treeBuilder.getSuppressMap();
diff --git a/pmd-html/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/html/ast/HtmlParser.java b/pmd-html/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/html/ast/HtmlParser.java
index c61cb4f5a4..1c0b57f65c 100644
--- a/pmd-html/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/html/ast/HtmlParser.java
+++ b/pmd-html/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/html/ast/HtmlParser.java
@@ -10,7 +10,6 @@ import java.io.Reader;
 import java.util.HashMap;
 import java.util.Map;
 
-import org.apache.commons.io.IOUtils;
 import org.jsoup.nodes.Document;
 import org.jsoup.parser.Parser;
 
@@ -18,6 +17,7 @@ import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.ParserOptions;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.TokenManager;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.ast.Node;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.ast.ParseException;
+import net.sourceforge.pmd.util.IOUtil;
 
 public final class HtmlParser implements net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.Parser {
 
@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ public final class HtmlParser implements net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.Parser {
     @Override
     public Node parse(String fileName, Reader source) throws ParseException {
         try {
-            String data = IOUtils.toString(source);
+            String data = IOUtil.readToString(source);
             Document doc = Parser.xmlParser().parseInput(data, "");
             HtmlTreeBuilder builder = new HtmlTreeBuilder();
             return builder.build(doc, data);
diff --git a/pmd-javascript/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/ecmascript/ast/EcmascriptParser.java b/pmd-javascript/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/ecmascript/ast/EcmascriptParser.java
index 359d96b0b4..156728171c 100644
--- a/pmd-javascript/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/ecmascript/ast/EcmascriptParser.java
+++ b/pmd-javascript/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/ecmascript/ast/EcmascriptParser.java
@@ -11,7 +11,6 @@ import java.util.HashMap;
 import java.util.List;
 import java.util.Map;
 
-import org.apache.commons.io.IOUtils;
 import org.mozilla.javascript.CompilerEnvirons;
 import org.mozilla.javascript.Parser;
 import org.mozilla.javascript.ast.AstRoot;
@@ -22,6 +21,7 @@ import org.mozilla.javascript.ast.ParseProblem;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.annotation.InternalApi;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.ast.ParseException;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.ecmascript.EcmascriptParserOptions;
+import net.sourceforge.pmd.util.IOUtil;
 
 public class EcmascriptParser {
     @Deprecated
@@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ public class EcmascriptParser {
     public EcmascriptNode<AstRoot> parse(final Reader reader) {
         try {
             final List<ParseProblem> parseProblems = new ArrayList<>();
-            final String sourceCode = IOUtils.toString(reader);
+            final String sourceCode = IOUtil.readToString(reader);
             final AstRoot astRoot = parseEcmascript(sourceCode, parseProblems);
             final EcmascriptTreeBuilder treeBuilder = new EcmascriptTreeBuilder(sourceCode, parseProblems);
             EcmascriptNode<AstRoot> tree = treeBuilder.build(astRoot);
diff --git a/pmd-plsql/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/plsql/PLSQLParser.java b/pmd-plsql/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/plsql/PLSQLParser.java
index 4466d61480..442a6c8be0 100644
--- a/pmd-plsql/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/plsql/PLSQLParser.java
+++ b/pmd-plsql/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/plsql/PLSQLParser.java
@@ -10,8 +10,6 @@ import java.io.StringReader;
 import java.util.HashMap;
 import java.util.Map;
 
-import org.apache.commons.io.IOUtils;
-
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.annotation.InternalApi;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.AbstractParser;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.LanguageVersionHandler;
@@ -56,7 +54,7 @@ public class PLSQLParser extends AbstractParser {
     @Override
     public Node parse(String fileName, Reader source) throws ParseException {
         try {
-            String sourcecode = IOUtils.toString(source);
+            String sourcecode = IOUtil.readToString(source);
             AbstractTokenManager.setFileName(fileName);
             return createPLSQLParser(new StringReader(sourcecode)).Input(sourcecode);
         } catch (IOException e) {
diff --git a/pmd-scala-modules/pmd-scala-common/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/scala/ScalaParser.java b/pmd-scala-modules/pmd-scala-common/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/scala/ScalaParser.java
index 8edb8d5ab9..ded0c0c04a 100644
--- a/pmd-scala-modules/pmd-scala-common/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/scala/ScalaParser.java
+++ b/pmd-scala-modules/pmd-scala-common/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/scala/ScalaParser.java
@@ -9,13 +9,12 @@ import java.io.Reader;
 import java.util.HashMap;
 import java.util.Map;
 
-import org.apache.commons.io.IOUtils;
-
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.AbstractParser;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.ParserOptions;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.TokenManager;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.ast.ParseException;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.scala.ast.ASTSource;
+import net.sourceforge.pmd.util.IOUtil;
 
 import scala.meta.Dialect;
 import scala.meta.Source;
@@ -52,7 +51,7 @@ public class ScalaParser extends AbstractParser {
     public ASTSource parse(String fileName, Reader source) throws ParseException {
         Input.VirtualFile virtualFile;
         try {
-            String sourceString = IOUtils.toString(source);
+            String sourceString = IOUtil.readToString(source);
             virtualFile = new Input.VirtualFile(fileName, sourceString);
         } catch (IOException e) {
             throw new ParseException(e);
diff --git a/pmd-xml/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/xml/ast/XmlParser.java b/pmd-xml/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/xml/ast/XmlParser.java
index 2bf8d097f9..9ac2376389 100644
--- a/pmd-xml/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/xml/ast/XmlParser.java
+++ b/pmd-xml/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/xml/ast/XmlParser.java
@@ -13,7 +13,6 @@ import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder;
 import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory;
 import javax.xml.parsers.ParserConfigurationException;
 
-import org.apache.commons.io.IOUtils;
 import org.w3c.dom.Document;
 import org.w3c.dom.Node;
 import org.xml.sax.InputSource;
@@ -22,6 +21,7 @@ import org.xml.sax.SAXException;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.ast.ParseException;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.ast.RootNode;
 import net.sourceforge.pmd.lang.xml.XmlParserOptions;
+import net.sourceforge.pmd.util.IOUtil;
 
 
 public class XmlParser {
@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@ public class XmlParser {
     protected Document parseDocument(Reader reader) throws ParseException {
         nodeCache.clear();
         try {
-            String xmlData = IOUtils.toString(reader);
+            String xmlData = IOUtil.readToString(reader);
 
             DocumentBuilderFactory dbf = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
             dbf.setNamespaceAware(parserOptions.isNamespaceAware());