diff --git a/source/java/org/alfresco/repo/web/scripts/servlet/BasicHttpAuthenticatorFactory.java b/source/java/org/alfresco/repo/web/scripts/servlet/BasicHttpAuthenticatorFactory.java
index 595c0d4db5..5ff955d679 100644
--- a/source/java/org/alfresco/repo/web/scripts/servlet/BasicHttpAuthenticatorFactory.java
+++ b/source/java/org/alfresco/repo/web/scripts/servlet/BasicHttpAuthenticatorFactory.java
@@ -18,17 +18,9 @@
  */
 package org.alfresco.repo.web.scripts.servlet;
 
-import java.nio.ByteBuffer;
-import java.nio.CharBuffer;
-import java.nio.charset.CharacterCodingException;
-import java.nio.charset.Charset;
-import java.nio.charset.CharsetDecoder;
-import java.nio.charset.CodingErrorAction;
-
 import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
 import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;
 
-import org.alfresco.error.AlfrescoRuntimeException;
 import org.alfresco.repo.security.authentication.AuthenticationException;
 import org.alfresco.repo.security.authentication.Authorization;
 import org.alfresco.repo.web.auth.AuthenticationListener;
@@ -60,20 +52,7 @@ public class BasicHttpAuthenticatorFactory implements ServletAuthenticatorFactor
     // Component dependencies
     private AuthenticationService authenticationService;
     private AuthenticationListener listener;
-    
-    private CharsetDecoder utf8Decoder;
-    private CharsetDecoder isoDecoder;
 
-    public BasicHttpAuthenticatorFactory()
-    {
-        this.utf8Decoder = Charset.forName("UTF-8").newDecoder();  
-        utf8Decoder.onMalformedInput(CodingErrorAction.REPORT);  
-        utf8Decoder.onUnmappableCharacter(CodingErrorAction.REPORT);
-
-        this.isoDecoder = Charset.forName("ISO-8859-1").newDecoder();  
-        isoDecoder.onMalformedInput(CodingErrorAction.REPORT);  
-        isoDecoder.onUnmappableCharacter(CodingErrorAction.REPORT);
-    }
     
     /**
      * @param authenticationService
@@ -151,42 +130,6 @@ public class BasicHttpAuthenticatorFactory implements ServletAuthenticatorFactor
             this.authorization = httpReq.getHeader("Authorization");
             this.ticket = httpReq.getParameter("alf_ticket");
         }
-        
-        /*
-         * ALF-18742
-         * 
-         * Browsers may send Authorization header in an encoding other than UTF-8. This will try UTF-8
-         * first and, failing that, ISO-8859-1. Any other encoding will result in a runtime exception because
-         * we don't know what the encoding is in this case and can't work it out). 
-         */
-        private String decodeAuth(byte[] authBytes)
-        {
-        	String decodedAuth = null;
-            ByteBuffer uniBuf = ByteBuffer.wrap(authBytes);  
-
-            try
-            {  
-            	// try UTF-8 first
-            	CharBuffer charBuf = utf8Decoder.decode(uniBuf);  
-            	decodedAuth = charBuf.toString();
-            }
-            catch(CharacterCodingException e)
-            {
-            	// try ISO-8859-1
-            	uniBuf = ByteBuffer.wrap(authBytes);
-            	try
-            	{
-	            	CharBuffer charBuf = isoDecoder.decode(uniBuf);
-	            	decodedAuth = charBuf.toString();
-                }
-                catch(CharacterCodingException e1)
-                {
-                	throw new AlfrescoRuntimeException("Unknown authentication character encoding (tried UTF-8 and ISO-8859-1)", e1);
-                }
-            }  
-
-            return decodedAuth;
-        }
     
         /* (non-Javadoc)
          * @see org.alfresco.web.scripts.Authenticator#authenticate(org.alfresco.web.scripts.Description.RequiredAuthentication, boolean)
@@ -255,8 +198,8 @@ public class BasicHttpAuthenticatorFactory implements ServletAuthenticatorFactor
                 {
                     throw new WebScriptException("Authorization '" + authorizationParts[0] + "' not supported.");
                 }
-
-                String decodedAuthorisation = decodeAuth(Base64.decode(authorizationParts[1]));
+                
+                String decodedAuthorisation = new String(Base64.decode(authorizationParts[1]));
                 Authorization auth = new Authorization(decodedAuthorisation);
                 try
                 {