diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index 1880d0fb35..2aed9bb546 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -6,7 +6,6 @@ git:
   submodules: false
 install:
   - sudo apt-get install -qq python-enchant
-  - if [[ $TRAVIS_PYTHON_VERSION == "2.7" ]]; then pip install backports.ssl_match_hostname; fi
   - pip install -r dev-requirements.txt
   - pip install coveralls
 script:
diff --git a/dev-requirements.txt b/dev-requirements.txt
index 2eeb58d3c3..ec33759ae0 100644
--- a/dev-requirements.txt
+++ b/dev-requirements.txt
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+# python modules that must be installed before the tests can run
+backports.ssl_match_hostname
 lxml
 pygeoip
 praw
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 99ff79765e..1e3494c6a6 100755
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -16,6 +16,10 @@ def do_setup():
         tmp_main_script = os.path.join(tmp_dir, 'willie')
         shutil.copy('willie.py', tmp_main_script)
 
+        with open("dev-requirements.txt") as f:
+            requires = [line for line in f.readlines()
+                        if not line.startswith("#")]
+
         setup(
             name='willie',
             version=__version__,
@@ -30,8 +34,7 @@ def do_setup():
             scripts=[tmp_main_script],
             license='Eiffel Forum License, version 2',
             platforms='Linux x86, x86-64',
-            requires=[b'feedparser', b'pytz', b'lxml', b'praw', b'enchant',
-                      b'pygeoip', b'backports.ssl_match_hostname']
+            requires=requires,
         )
     finally:
         try: