diff --git a/tests/test_updater_ng.py b/tests/test_updater_ng.py
index 3616e649ec..30d9e4b8a0 100644
--- a/tests/test_updater_ng.py
+++ b/tests/test_updater_ng.py
@@ -112,7 +112,7 @@ def setUp(self) -> None:
             + utils.TEST_HOST_ADDRESS
             + ":"
             + str(self.server_process_handler.port)
-            + repository_basepath
+            + repository_basepath.replace("\\","/")
         )
 
         self.metadata_url = f"{url_prefix}/metadata/"
diff --git a/tuf/ngclient/fetcher.py b/tuf/ngclient/fetcher.py
index 6e8f2df27d..f10c5156e2 100644
--- a/tuf/ngclient/fetcher.py
+++ b/tuf/ngclient/fetcher.py
@@ -10,7 +10,6 @@
 import tempfile
 from contextlib import contextmanager
 from typing import IO, Iterator
-from urllib import parse
 
 from tuf import exceptions
 
@@ -61,13 +60,6 @@ def download_file(self, url: str, max_length: int) -> Iterator[IO]:
         Yields:
           A TemporaryFile object that points to the contents of 'url'.
         """
-        # 'url.replace('\\', '/')' is needed for compatibility with
-        # Windows-based systems, because they might use back-slashes in place
-        # of forward-slashes. This converts it to the common format.
-        # unquote() replaces %xx escapes in a url with their single-character
-        # equivalent. A back-slash may beencoded as %5c in the url, which
-        # should also be replaced with a forward slash.
-        url = parse.unquote(url).replace("\\", "/")
         logger.debug("Downloading: %s", url)
 
         number_of_bytes_received = 0