diff --git a/sphinx/builders/changes.py b/sphinx/builders/changes.py
index 3e351e6cb..22fcab869 100644
--- a/sphinx/builders/changes.py
+++ b/sphinx/builders/changes.py
@@ -11,7 +11,6 @@
 
 import codecs
 from os import path
-from cgi import escape
 
 from sphinx import package_dir
 from sphinx.util import copy_static_entry
@@ -20,6 +19,7 @@ from sphinx.theming import Theme
 from sphinx.builders import Builder
 from sphinx.util.osutil import ensuredir, os_path
 from sphinx.util.console import bold
+from sphinx.util.pycompat import htmlescape
 
 
 class ChangesBuilder(Builder):
@@ -115,7 +115,7 @@ class ChangesBuilder(Builder):
                   '.. deprecated:: %s' % version]
 
         def hl(no, line):
-            line = '<a name="L%s"> </a>' % no + escape(line)
+            line = '<a name="L%s"> </a>' % no + htmlescape(line)
             for x in hltext:
                 if x in line:
                     line = '<span class="hl">%s</span>' % line
@@ -125,7 +125,10 @@ class ChangesBuilder(Builder):
         self.info(bold('copying source files...'))
         for docname in self.env.all_docs:
             f = codecs.open(self.env.doc2path(docname), 'r', 'latin1')
-            lines = f.readlines()
+            try:
+                lines = f.readlines()
+            finally:
+                f.close()
             targetfn = path.join(self.outdir, 'rst', os_path(docname)) + '.html'
             ensuredir(path.dirname(targetfn))
             f = codecs.open(targetfn, 'w', 'latin1')
@@ -148,7 +151,7 @@ class ChangesBuilder(Builder):
                           self.outdir, self)
 
     def hl(self, text, version):
-        text = escape(text)
+        text = htmlescape(text)
         for directive in ['versionchanged', 'versionadded', 'deprecated']:
             text = text.replace('.. %s:: %s' % (directive, version),
                                 '<b>.. %s:: %s</b>' % (directive, version))
diff --git a/sphinx/builders/htmlhelp.py b/sphinx/builders/htmlhelp.py
index 9a9238f97..fdf25cc81 100644
--- a/sphinx/builders/htmlhelp.py
+++ b/sphinx/builders/htmlhelp.py
@@ -11,7 +11,6 @@
 """
 
 import os
-import cgi
 import codecs
 from os import path
 
@@ -19,6 +18,7 @@ from docutils import nodes
 
 from sphinx import addnodes
 from sphinx.builders.html import StandaloneHTMLBuilder
+from sphinx.util.pycompat import htmlescape
 
 
 # Project file (*.hhp) template.  'outname' is the file basename (like
@@ -241,7 +241,7 @@ class HTMLHelpBuilder(StandaloneHTMLBuilder):
                         write_toc(subnode, ullevel)
                 elif isinstance(node, nodes.reference):
                     link = node['refuri']
-                    title = cgi.escape(node.astext()).replace('"','&quot;')
+                    title = htmlescape(node.astext()).replace('"','&quot;')
                     f.write(object_sitemap % (title, link))
                 elif isinstance(node, nodes.bullet_list):
                     if ullevel != 0:
@@ -272,7 +272,7 @@ class HTMLHelpBuilder(StandaloneHTMLBuilder):
                     item = '    <param name="%s" value="%s">\n' % \
                         (name, value)
                     f.write(item)
-                title = cgi.escape(title)
+                title = htmlescape(title)
                 f.write('<LI> <OBJECT type="text/sitemap">\n')
                 write_param('Keyword', title)
                 if len(refs) == 0:
diff --git a/sphinx/builders/qthelp.py b/sphinx/builders/qthelp.py
index b2ff26f4d..662c443e0 100644
--- a/sphinx/builders/qthelp.py
+++ b/sphinx/builders/qthelp.py
@@ -14,12 +14,12 @@ import re
 import codecs
 import posixpath
 from os import path
-from cgi import escape
 
 from docutils import nodes
 
 from sphinx import addnodes
 from sphinx.builders.html import StandaloneHTMLBuilder
+from sphinx.util.pycompat import htmlescape
 
 
 _idpattern = re.compile(
@@ -164,7 +164,7 @@ class QtHelpBuilder(StandaloneHTMLBuilder):
                        fn.endswith('.html'):
                     filename = path.join(root, fn)[olen:]
                     projectfiles.append(file_template %
-                                        {'filename': escape(filename)})
+                                        {'filename': htmlescape(filename)})
         projectfiles = '\n'.join(projectfiles)
 
         # it seems that the "namespace" may not contain non-alphanumeric
@@ -179,12 +179,12 @@ class QtHelpBuilder(StandaloneHTMLBuilder):
         f = codecs.open(path.join(outdir, outname+'.qhp'), 'w', 'utf-8')
         try:
             f.write(project_template % {
-                'outname': escape(outname),
-                'title': escape(self.config.html_title),
-                'version': escape(self.config.version),
-                'project': escape(self.config.project),
-                'namespace': escape(nspace),
-                'masterdoc': escape(self.config.master_doc),
+                'outname': htmlescape(outname),
+                'title': htmlescape(self.config.html_title),
+                'version': htmlescape(self.config.version),
+                'project': htmlescape(self.config.project),
+                'namespace': htmlescape(nspace),
+                'masterdoc': htmlescape(self.config.master_doc),
                 'sections': sections,
                 'keywords': keywords,
                 'files': projectfiles})
@@ -199,10 +199,10 @@ class QtHelpBuilder(StandaloneHTMLBuilder):
         f = codecs.open(path.join(outdir, outname+'.qhcp'), 'w', 'utf-8')
         try:
             f.write(collection_template % {
-                'outname': escape(outname),
-                'title': escape(self.config.html_short_title),
-                'homepage': escape(homepage),
-                'startpage': escape(startpage)})
+                'outname': htmlescape(outname),
+                'title': htmlescape(self.config.html_short_title),
+                'homepage': htmlescape(homepage),
+                'startpage': htmlescape(startpage)})
         finally:
             f.close()
 
@@ -224,7 +224,7 @@ class QtHelpBuilder(StandaloneHTMLBuilder):
         if self.isdocnode(node):
             refnode = node.children[0][0]
             link = refnode['refuri']
-            title = escape(refnode.astext()).replace('"','&quot;')
+            title = htmlescape(refnode.astext()).replace('"','&quot;')
             item = '<section title="%(title)s" ref="%(ref)s">' % {
                                                                 'title': title,
                                                                 'ref': link}
@@ -237,7 +237,7 @@ class QtHelpBuilder(StandaloneHTMLBuilder):
                 parts.extend(self.write_toc(subnode, indentlevel))
         elif isinstance(node, nodes.reference):
             link = node['refuri']
-            title = escape(node.astext()).replace('"','&quot;')
+            title = htmlescape(node.astext()).replace('"','&quot;')
             item = section_template % {'title': title, 'ref': link}
             item = u' ' * 4 * indentlevel + item
             parts.append(item.encode('ascii', 'xmlcharrefreplace'))
@@ -274,7 +274,7 @@ class QtHelpBuilder(StandaloneHTMLBuilder):
     def build_keywords(self, title, refs, subitems):
         keywords = []
 
-        title = escape(title)
+        title = htmlescape(title)
 #        if len(refs) == 0: # XXX
 #            write_param('See Also', title)
         if len(refs) == 1:
diff --git a/sphinx/highlighting.py b/sphinx/highlighting.py
index 8e10cf57d..2f61c1ef1 100644
--- a/sphinx/highlighting.py
+++ b/sphinx/highlighting.py
@@ -10,7 +10,6 @@
 """
 
 import sys
-import cgi
 import re
 import textwrap
 
@@ -20,6 +19,7 @@ except ImportError:
     # parser is not available on Jython
     parser = None
 
+from sphinx.util.pycompat import htmlescape
 from sphinx.util.texescape import tex_hl_escape_map_new
 from sphinx.ext import doctest
 
@@ -105,7 +105,7 @@ class PygmentsBridge(object):
 
     def unhighlighted(self, source):
         if self.dest == 'html':
-            return '<pre>' + cgi.escape(source) + '</pre>\n'
+            return '<pre>' + htmlescape(source) + '</pre>\n'
         else:
             # first, escape highlighting characters like Pygments does
             source = source.translate(escape_hl_chars)
diff --git a/sphinx/util/inspect.py b/sphinx/util/inspect.py
index f5c8911da..b5c3db598 100644
--- a/sphinx/util/inspect.py
+++ b/sphinx/util/inspect.py
@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@ import sys
 inspect = __import__('inspect')
 
 from sphinx.util import force_decode
+from sphinx.util.pycompat import bytes
 
 
 if sys.version_info >= (2, 5):
@@ -89,4 +90,6 @@ def safe_repr(object):
         s = repr(object)
     except Exception:
         raise ValueError
-    return force_decode(s, None).replace('\n', ' ')
+    if isinstance(s, bytes):
+        return force_decode(s, None).replace('\n', ' ')
+    return s.replace('\n', ' ')
diff --git a/sphinx/util/pycompat.py b/sphinx/util/pycompat.py
index cd9f6e2fc..9e081b02f 100644
--- a/sphinx/util/pycompat.py
+++ b/sphinx/util/pycompat.py
@@ -64,6 +64,11 @@ else:
         return s.encode('ascii', 'backslashreplace')
 
 
+try:
+    from html import escape as htmlescape
+except ImportError:
+    from cgi import escape as htmlescape
+
 # ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 # Missing builtins and itertools in Python < 2.6
 
diff --git a/sphinx/websupport/__init__.py b/sphinx/websupport/__init__.py
index 61b63cab2..72864a17b 100644
--- a/sphinx/websupport/__init__.py
+++ b/sphinx/websupport/__init__.py
@@ -9,7 +9,6 @@
     :license: BSD, see LICENSE for details.
 """
 
-import cgi
 import sys
 import cPickle as pickle
 import posixpath
@@ -22,6 +21,7 @@ from docutils.core import publish_parts
 from sphinx.application import Sphinx
 from sphinx.util.osutil import ensuredir
 from sphinx.util.jsonimpl import dumps as dump_json
+from sphinx.util.pycompat import htmlescape
 from sphinx.websupport import errors
 from sphinx.websupport.search import BaseSearch, SEARCH_ADAPTERS
 from sphinx.websupport.storage import StorageBackend
@@ -452,5 +452,5 @@ class WebSupport(object):
             ret = publish_parts(text, writer_name='html',
                                 settings_overrides=settings)['fragment']
         except Exception:
-            ret = cgi.escape(text)
+            ret = htmlescape(text)
         return ret
diff --git a/sphinx/websupport/storage/differ.py b/sphinx/websupport/storage/differ.py
index 33fe54f34..fb3b8dc95 100644
--- a/sphinx/websupport/storage/differ.py
+++ b/sphinx/websupport/storage/differ.py
@@ -10,9 +10,10 @@
 """
 
 import re
-from cgi import escape
 from difflib import Differ
 
+from sphinx.util.pycompat import htmlescape
+
 
 class CombinedHtmlDiff(object):
     """Create an HTML representation of the differences between two pieces
@@ -21,7 +22,7 @@ class CombinedHtmlDiff(object):
     highlight_regex = re.compile(r'([\+\-\^]+)')
 
     def __init__(self, source, proposal):
-        proposal = escape(proposal)
+        proposal = htmlescape(proposal)
 
         differ = Differ()
         self.diff = list(differ.compare(source.splitlines(1),
diff --git a/tests/test_build_html.py b/tests/test_build_html.py
index 14b9d377d..a38806a86 100644
--- a/tests/test_build_html.py
+++ b/tests/test_build_html.py
@@ -328,7 +328,11 @@ def test_html(app):
     for fname, paths in HTML_XPATH.iteritems():
         parser = NslessParser()
         parser.entity.update(htmlentitydefs.entitydefs)
-        etree = ET.parse(os.path.join(app.outdir, fname), parser)
+        fp = open(os.path.join(app.outdir, fname))
+        try:
+            etree = ET.parse(fp, parser)
+        finally:
+            fp.close()
         for path, check in paths:
             yield check_xpath, etree, fname, path, check