diff --git a/lib/settings-common.php b/lib/settings-common.php
index f2acb52..ce08e3b 100644
--- a/lib/settings-common.php
+++ b/lib/settings-common.php
@@ -133,8 +133,18 @@ function toUTF8noBOM($string,$message) {
 	// Attempt to detect encoding
 	if (function_exists('mb_detect_encoding')) {
 		$strictUTF8 = mb_detect_encoding($string, 'UTF-8', true);
-		// Get rid of any UTF-8 BOM, need to replace with a line return
-		$string = preg_replace("/\x{EF}\x{BB}\x{BF}/",PHP_EOL,$string);
+		// Establish a BOM
+		$bom = pack("CCC", 0xef, 0xbb, 0xbf);
+		// If there's a BOM in the first few chars
+		if (0 === strncmp($string, $bom, 3)) {
+			// chop BOM off and prefix returned string with a PHP_EOL
+			if (0 === strncmp($string, $bom."\r\n", 5)) {
+				$string = PHP_EOL.substr($string, 3);
+			// Else, simply chop off the BOM
+			} else {
+				$string = substr($string, 3);
+			}
+		}
 
 		// Test for any bad characters
 		$teststring = $string;