diff --git a/rigo/rigo/ui/gtk3/widgets/cellrenderers.py b/rigo/rigo/ui/gtk3/widgets/cellrenderers.py
index 3e96c4bc1..073bf0ec4 100644
--- a/rigo/rigo/ui/gtk3/widgets/cellrenderers.py
+++ b/rigo/rigo/ui/gtk3/widgets/cellrenderers.py
@@ -19,9 +19,10 @@
 
 from gi.repository import Gtk, Gdk, GObject, Pango
 
+from entropy.const import const_convert_to_unicode
+
 from rigo.em import EM
 from rigo.models.application import CategoryRowReference
-from rigo.utils import utf8
 
 from stars import StarRenderer, StarSize
 
@@ -459,7 +460,8 @@ class CellButtonRenderer:
         max_size = (0,0)
 
         for k, variant in self.markup_variants.items():
-            safe_markup = GObject.markup_escape_text(utf8(variant))
+            safe_markup = GObject.markup_escape_text(
+                const_convert_to_unicode(variant))
             layout.set_markup(safe_markup, -1)
             size = layout.get_size()
             max_size = max(max_size, size)
diff --git a/rigo/rigo/utils.py b/rigo/rigo/utils.py
index 75a6f920d..3af9b9fc1 100644
--- a/rigo/rigo/utils.py
+++ b/rigo/rigo/utils.py
@@ -35,15 +35,3 @@ class ExecutionTime(object):
     def __exit__(self, type, value, stack):
         logger = logging.getLogger("softwarecenter.performance")
         logger.debug("%s: %s" % (self.info, time.time() - self.now))
-
-def utf8(s):
-    """
-    Takes a string or unicode object and returns a utf-8 encoded
-    string, errors are ignored
-    FIXME: lxnay, drop this crap and use Entropy functions instead.
-    """
-    if s is None:
-        return None
-    if isinstance(s, unicode):
-        return s.encode("utf-8", "ignore")
-    return unicode(s, "utf8", "ignore").encode("utf8")