diff --git a/lib/functions/validate/function.validateUrl.php b/lib/functions/validate/function.validateUrl.php
index 65ad0961..be7d51b5 100644
--- a/lib/functions/validate/function.validateUrl.php
+++ b/lib/functions/validate/function.validateUrl.php
@@ -28,18 +28,18 @@
 
 function validateUrl($url)
 {
+	global $idna_convert;
+
 	if(strtolower(substr($url, 0, 7)) != "http://"
 	&& strtolower(substr($url, 0, 8)) != "https://")
 	{
 		$url = 'http://' . $url;
 	}
+	
+	// needs converting
+	$url = $idna_convert->encode($url);
 
-	// there is a bug in php 5.2.13 - 5.3.2 which
-	// lets filter_var fail if the domain has
-	// a dash (-) in it. As the PHP_VERSION constant
-	// gives also patch-brandings, e.g. '5.3.2-pl0-gentoo'
-	// we just always use our regex
-	$pattern = '/^https?:\/\/([a-z0-9]([a-z0-9\-]{0,61}[a-z0-9])?\.)+[a-z]{2,6}$/i';
+	$pattern = "/^https?\:\/\/[a-zA-Z0-9\-\.]+\.[a-zA-Z]{2,3}(\/\S*)?$/i";
 	if(preg_match($pattern, $url))
 	{
 		return true;