diff --git a/.bandit.yml b/.bandit.yml
index 00554587a..243379b0b 100644
--- a/.bandit.yml
+++ b/.bandit.yml
@@ -1,13 +1,15 @@
 skips:
 - B101
 - B105
+- B301
 - B303
 - B306
 - B307
 - B311
 - B320
 - B321
-- B402
+- B402  # https://github.com/scrapy/scrapy/issues/4180
+- B403
 - B404
 - B406
 - B410
diff --git a/docs/conf.py b/docs/conf.py
index eab366efd..914d1d05f 100644
--- a/docs/conf.py
+++ b/docs/conf.py
@@ -275,6 +275,7 @@ coverage_ignore_pyobjects = [
 # -------------------------------------
 
 intersphinx_mapping = {
+    'coverage': ('https://coverage.readthedocs.io/en/stable', None),
     'pytest': ('https://docs.pytest.org/en/latest', None),
     'python': ('https://docs.python.org/3', None),
     'sphinx': ('https://www.sphinx-doc.org/en/master', None),
diff --git a/docs/contributing.rst b/docs/contributing.rst
index 81bb50a77..234c4bcee 100644
--- a/docs/contributing.rst
+++ b/docs/contributing.rst
@@ -243,14 +243,13 @@ the Python 3.6 :doc:`tox <tox:index>` environment using all your CPU cores::
 
     tox -e py36 -- scrapy tests -n auto
 
-To see coverage report install `coverage`_ (``pip install coverage``) and run:
+To see coverage report install :doc:`coverage <coverage:index>`
+(``pip install coverage``) and run:
 
     ``coverage report``
 
 see output of ``coverage --help`` for more options like html or xml report.
 
-.. _coverage: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/coverage
-
 Writing tests
 -------------
 
diff --git a/docs/intro/overview.rst b/docs/intro/overview.rst
index 8b2fef065..01986b594 100644
--- a/docs/intro/overview.rst
+++ b/docs/intro/overview.rst
@@ -34,8 +34,8 @@ http://quotes.toscrape.com, following the pagination::
         def parse(self, response):
             for quote in response.css('div.quote'):
                 yield {
-                    'text': quote.css('span.text::text').get(),
                     'author': quote.xpath('span/small/text()').get(),
+                    'text': quote.css('span.text::text').get(),
                 }
 
             next_page = response.css('li.next a::attr("href")').get()
diff --git a/docs/topics/loaders.rst b/docs/topics/loaders.rst
index 12a5e5c60..de3f38023 100644
--- a/docs/topics/loaders.rst
+++ b/docs/topics/loaders.rst
@@ -142,20 +142,6 @@ accept one (and only one) positional argument, which will be an iterable.
    containing the collected values (for that field). The result of the output
    processors is the value that will be finally assigned to the item.
 
-If you want to use a plain function as a processor, make sure it receives
-``self`` as the first argument::
-
-    def lowercase_processor(self, values):
-        for v in values:
-            yield v.lower()
-
-    class MyItemLoader(ItemLoader):
-        name_in = lowercase_processor
-
-This is because whenever a function is assigned as a class variable, it becomes
-a method and would be passed the instance as the the first argument when being
-called. See `this answer on stackoverflow`_ for more details.
-
 The other thing you need to keep in mind is that the values returned by input
 processors are collected internally (in lists) and then passed to output
 processors to populate the fields.
@@ -163,7 +149,7 @@ processors to populate the fields.
 Last, but not least, Scrapy comes with some :ref:`commonly used processors
 <topics-loaders-available-processors>` built-in for convenience.
 
-.. _this answer on stackoverflow: https://stackoverflow.com/a/35322635
+
 
 Declaring Item Loaders
 ======================
@@ -491,6 +477,8 @@ ItemLoader objects
     .. attribute:: item
 
         The :class:`~scrapy.item.Item` object being parsed by this Item Loader.
+        This is mostly used as a property so when attempting to override this
+        value, you may want to check out :attr:`default_item_class` first.
 
     .. attribute:: context
 
diff --git a/extras/qps-bench-server.py b/extras/qps-bench-server.py
index 3bef20bf3..da7a0022b 100755
--- a/extras/qps-bench-server.py
+++ b/extras/qps-bench-server.py
@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env python
-from __future__ import print_function
 from time import time
 from collections import deque
 from twisted.web.server import Site, NOT_DONE_YET
diff --git a/requirements-py3.txt b/requirements-py3.txt
index 2c98e6f6d..28c649e28 100644
--- a/requirements-py3.txt
+++ b/requirements-py3.txt
@@ -2,7 +2,6 @@ parsel>=1.5.0
 PyDispatcher>=2.0.5
 Twisted>=17.9.0
 w3lib>=1.17.0
-protego>=0.1.15
 
 pyOpenSSL>=16.2.0  # Earlier versions fail with "AttributeError: module 'lib' has no attribute 'SSL_ST_INIT'"
 queuelib>=1.4.2    # Earlier versions fail with "AttributeError: '...QueueTest' object has no attribute 'qpath'"
@@ -14,5 +13,4 @@ cryptography>=2.0  # Earlier versions would fail to install
 cssselect>=0.9.1
 lxml>=3.5.0
 service_identity>=16.0.0
-six>=1.10.0
 zope.interface>=4.1.3
diff --git a/scrapy/__init__.py b/scrapy/__init__.py
index 230e5cee3..fb8357f3c 100644
--- a/scrapy/__init__.py
+++ b/scrapy/__init__.py
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ warnings.filterwarnings('ignore', category=DeprecationWarning, module='twisted')
 del warnings
 
 # Apply monkey patches to fix issues in external libraries
-from . import _monkeypatches
+from scrapy import _monkeypatches
 del _monkeypatches
 
 from twisted import version as _txv
diff --git a/scrapy/_monkeypatches.py b/scrapy/_monkeypatches.py
index 1f8067b35..f74f89bda 100644
--- a/scrapy/_monkeypatches.py
+++ b/scrapy/_monkeypatches.py
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-from six.moves import copyreg
+import copyreg
 
 
 # Undo what Twisted's perspective broker adds to pickle register
diff --git a/scrapy/cmdline.py b/scrapy/cmdline.py
index 418dc1ac9..69e917004 100644
--- a/scrapy/cmdline.py
+++ b/scrapy/cmdline.py
@@ -1,4 +1,3 @@
-from __future__ import print_function
 import sys
 import os
 import optparse
diff --git a/scrapy/commands/bench.py b/scrapy/commands/bench.py
index 90c8d56a2..7bbe362e7 100644
--- a/scrapy/commands/bench.py
+++ b/scrapy/commands/bench.py
@@ -1,8 +1,7 @@
 import sys
 import time
 import subprocess
-
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urlencode
+from urllib.parse import urlencode
 
 import scrapy
 from scrapy.commands import ScrapyCommand
diff --git a/scrapy/commands/fetch.py b/scrapy/commands/fetch.py
index 724b4a1c4..8a22ebabe 100644
--- a/scrapy/commands/fetch.py
+++ b/scrapy/commands/fetch.py
@@ -1,4 +1,3 @@
-from __future__ import print_function
 import sys
 from w3lib.url import is_url
 
diff --git a/scrapy/commands/genspider.py b/scrapy/commands/genspider.py
index d5498bb5c..adb01fa70 100644
--- a/scrapy/commands/genspider.py
+++ b/scrapy/commands/genspider.py
@@ -1,4 +1,3 @@
-from __future__ import print_function
 import os
 import shutil
 import string
diff --git a/scrapy/commands/list.py b/scrapy/commands/list.py
index 422183ac1..54d7bb228 100644
--- a/scrapy/commands/list.py
+++ b/scrapy/commands/list.py
@@ -1,4 +1,3 @@
-from __future__ import print_function
 from scrapy.commands import ScrapyCommand
 
 
diff --git a/scrapy/commands/parse.py b/scrapy/commands/parse.py
index ef8acd29c..ff6f1d8cd 100644
--- a/scrapy/commands/parse.py
+++ b/scrapy/commands/parse.py
@@ -1,4 +1,3 @@
-from __future__ import print_function
 import json
 import logging
 
diff --git a/scrapy/commands/settings.py b/scrapy/commands/settings.py
index ffe3aa2eb..603bafb9f 100644
--- a/scrapy/commands/settings.py
+++ b/scrapy/commands/settings.py
@@ -1,4 +1,3 @@
-from __future__ import print_function
 import json
 
 from scrapy.commands import ScrapyCommand
diff --git a/scrapy/commands/startproject.py b/scrapy/commands/startproject.py
index 3b9f6eabb..e65131ae8 100644
--- a/scrapy/commands/startproject.py
+++ b/scrapy/commands/startproject.py
@@ -1,4 +1,3 @@
-from __future__ import print_function
 import re
 import os
 import string
diff --git a/scrapy/commands/version.py b/scrapy/commands/version.py
index 8651948f7..1516c5997 100644
--- a/scrapy/commands/version.py
+++ b/scrapy/commands/version.py
@@ -1,5 +1,3 @@
-from __future__ import print_function
-
 import scrapy
 from scrapy.commands import ScrapyCommand
 from scrapy.utils.versions import scrapy_components_versions
diff --git a/scrapy/contracts/default.py b/scrapy/contracts/default.py
index 24f6c2e77..e0d425874 100644
--- a/scrapy/contracts/default.py
+++ b/scrapy/contracts/default.py
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ from scrapy.item import BaseItem
 from scrapy.http import Request
 from scrapy.exceptions import ContractFail
 
-from . import Contract
+from scrapy.contracts import Contract
 
 
 # contracts
diff --git a/scrapy/core/downloader/__init__.py b/scrapy/core/downloader/__init__.py
index 213268741..157dc3418 100644
--- a/scrapy/core/downloader/__init__.py
+++ b/scrapy/core/downloader/__init__.py
@@ -3,15 +3,14 @@ from time import time
 from datetime import datetime
 from collections import deque
 
-import six
 from twisted.internet import reactor, defer, task
 
 from scrapy.utils.defer import mustbe_deferred
 from scrapy.utils.httpobj import urlparse_cached
 from scrapy.resolver import dnscache
 from scrapy import signals
-from .middleware import DownloaderMiddlewareManager
-from .handlers import DownloadHandlers
+from scrapy.core.downloader.middleware import DownloaderMiddlewareManager
+from scrapy.core.downloader.handlers import DownloadHandlers
 
 
 class Slot(object):
@@ -188,7 +187,7 @@ class Downloader(object):
 
     def close(self):
         self._slot_gc_loop.stop()
-        for slot in six.itervalues(self.slots):
+        for slot in self.slots.values():
             slot.close()
 
     def _slot_gc(self, age=60):
diff --git a/scrapy/core/downloader/handlers/__init__.py b/scrapy/core/downloader/handlers/__init__.py
index 0b55d32fa..39a0b1f51 100644
--- a/scrapy/core/downloader/handlers/__init__.py
+++ b/scrapy/core/downloader/handlers/__init__.py
@@ -1,8 +1,9 @@
 """Download handlers for different schemes"""
 
 import logging
+
 from twisted.internet import defer
-import six
+
 from scrapy.exceptions import NotSupported, NotConfigured
 from scrapy.utils.httpobj import urlparse_cached
 from scrapy.utils.misc import load_object
@@ -22,7 +23,7 @@ class DownloadHandlers(object):
         self._notconfigured = {}  # remembers failed handlers
         handlers = without_none_values(
             crawler.settings.getwithbase('DOWNLOAD_HANDLERS'))
-        for scheme, clspath in six.iteritems(handlers):
+        for scheme, clspath in handlers.items():
             self._schemes[scheme] = clspath
             self._load_handler(scheme, skip_lazy=True)
 
diff --git a/scrapy/core/downloader/handlers/ftp.py b/scrapy/core/downloader/handlers/ftp.py
index 39ed67a1a..aef231e82 100644
--- a/scrapy/core/downloader/handlers/ftp.py
+++ b/scrapy/core/downloader/handlers/ftp.py
@@ -30,7 +30,7 @@ In case of status 200 request, response.headers will come with two keys:
 
 import re
 from io import BytesIO
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import unquote
+from urllib.parse import unquote
 
 from twisted.internet import reactor
 from twisted.protocols.ftp import FTPClient, CommandFailed
diff --git a/scrapy/core/downloader/handlers/http.py b/scrapy/core/downloader/handlers/http.py
index 6111e132a..52535bd8b 100644
--- a/scrapy/core/downloader/handlers/http.py
+++ b/scrapy/core/downloader/handlers/http.py
@@ -1,2 +1,4 @@
-from .http10 import HTTP10DownloadHandler
-from .http11 import HTTP11DownloadHandler as HTTPDownloadHandler
+from scrapy.core.downloader.handlers.http10 import HTTP10DownloadHandler
+from scrapy.core.downloader.handlers.http11 import (
+    HTTP11DownloadHandler as HTTPDownloadHandler,
+)
diff --git a/scrapy/core/downloader/handlers/http11.py b/scrapy/core/downloader/handlers/http11.py
index 7d917cb74..63dedc19b 100644
--- a/scrapy/core/downloader/handlers/http11.py
+++ b/scrapy/core/downloader/handlers/http11.py
@@ -2,10 +2,10 @@
 
 import re
 import logging
+import warnings
 from io import BytesIO
 from time import time
-import warnings
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urldefrag
+from urllib.parse import urldefrag
 
 from zope.interface import implementer
 from twisted.internet import defer, reactor, protocol
diff --git a/scrapy/core/downloader/handlers/s3.py b/scrapy/core/downloader/handlers/s3.py
index 808d1bf21..e2a07bdef 100644
--- a/scrapy/core/downloader/handlers/s3.py
+++ b/scrapy/core/downloader/handlers/s3.py
@@ -1,9 +1,9 @@
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import unquote
+from urllib.parse import unquote
 
 from scrapy.exceptions import NotConfigured
 from scrapy.utils.httpobj import urlparse_cached
 from scrapy.utils.boto import is_botocore
-from .http import HTTPDownloadHandler
+from scrapy.core.downloader.handlers.http import HTTPDownloadHandler
 
 
 def _get_boto_connection():
diff --git a/scrapy/core/downloader/middleware.py b/scrapy/core/downloader/middleware.py
index 7a6a4dfac..38608a429 100644
--- a/scrapy/core/downloader/middleware.py
+++ b/scrapy/core/downloader/middleware.py
@@ -3,8 +3,6 @@ Downloader Middleware manager
 
 See documentation in docs/topics/downloader-middleware.rst
 """
-import six
-
 from twisted.internet import defer
 
 from scrapy.exceptions import _InvalidOutput
@@ -38,7 +36,7 @@ class DownloaderMiddlewareManager(MiddlewareManager):
                 response = yield method(request=request, spider=spider)
                 if response is not None and not isinstance(response, (Response, Request)):
                     raise _InvalidOutput('Middleware %s.process_request must return None, Response or Request, got %s' % \
-                                         (six.get_method_self(method).__class__.__name__, response.__class__.__name__))
+                                         (method.__self__.__class__.__name__, response.__class__.__name__))
                 if response:
                     defer.returnValue(response)
             defer.returnValue((yield download_func(request=request, spider=spider)))
@@ -53,7 +51,7 @@ class DownloaderMiddlewareManager(MiddlewareManager):
                 response = yield method(request=request, response=response, spider=spider)
                 if not isinstance(response, (Response, Request)):
                     raise _InvalidOutput('Middleware %s.process_response must return Response or Request, got %s' % \
-                                         (six.get_method_self(method).__class__.__name__, type(response)))
+                                         (method.__self__.__class__.__name__, type(response)))
                 if isinstance(response, Request):
                     defer.returnValue(response)
             defer.returnValue(response)
@@ -65,7 +63,7 @@ class DownloaderMiddlewareManager(MiddlewareManager):
                 response = yield method(request=request, exception=exception, spider=spider)
                 if response is not None and not isinstance(response, (Response, Request)):
                     raise _InvalidOutput('Middleware %s.process_exception must return None, Response or Request, got %s' % \
-                                         (six.get_method_self(method).__class__.__name__, type(response)))
+                                         (method.__self__.__class__.__name__, type(response)))
                 if response:
                     defer.returnValue(response)
             defer.returnValue(_failure)
diff --git a/scrapy/core/downloader/webclient.py b/scrapy/core/downloader/webclient.py
index 3fe13414a..798346f19 100644
--- a/scrapy/core/downloader/webclient.py
+++ b/scrapy/core/downloader/webclient.py
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 from time import time
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urlparse, urlunparse, urldefrag
+from urllib.parse import urlparse, urlunparse, urldefrag
 
 from twisted.web.client import HTTPClientFactory
 from twisted.web.http import HTTPClient
diff --git a/scrapy/core/spidermw.py b/scrapy/core/spidermw.py
index 00cee3ada..e2ade8256 100644
--- a/scrapy/core/spidermw.py
+++ b/scrapy/core/spidermw.py
@@ -5,7 +5,6 @@ See documentation in docs/topics/spider-middleware.rst
 """
 from itertools import chain, islice
 
-import six
 from twisted.python.failure import Failure
 from scrapy.exceptions import _InvalidOutput
 from scrapy.middleware import MiddlewareManager
@@ -37,8 +36,8 @@ class SpiderMiddlewareManager(MiddlewareManager):
 
     def scrape_response(self, scrape_func, response, request, spider):
         fname = lambda f: '%s.%s' % (
-                six.get_method_self(f).__class__.__name__,
-                six.get_method_function(f).__name__)
+                f.__self__.__class__.__name__,
+                f.__func__.__name__)
 
         def process_spider_input(response):
             for method in self.methods['process_spider_input']:
diff --git a/scrapy/crawler.py b/scrapy/crawler.py
index f8c80880a..6c7eb737b 100644
--- a/scrapy/crawler.py
+++ b/scrapy/crawler.py
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
-import six
-import signal
 import logging
+import pprint
+import signal
 import warnings
 
 from twisted.internet import reactor, defer
@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@ from scrapy.utils.log import (
     get_scrapy_root_handler, install_scrapy_root_handler)
 from scrapy import signals
 
+
 logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
 
 
@@ -45,7 +46,8 @@ class Crawler(object):
         logging.root.addHandler(handler)
 
         d = dict(overridden_settings(self.settings))
-        logger.info("Overridden settings: %(settings)r", {'settings': d})
+        logger.info("Overridden settings:\n%(settings)s",
+                    {'settings': pprint.pformat(d)})
 
         if get_scrapy_root_handler() is not None:
             # scrapy root handler already installed: update it with new settings
@@ -204,7 +206,7 @@ class CrawlerRunner(object):
         return self._create_crawler(crawler_or_spidercls)
 
     def _create_crawler(self, spidercls):
-        if isinstance(spidercls, six.string_types):
+        if isinstance(spidercls, str):
             spidercls = self.spider_loader.load(spidercls)
         return Crawler(spidercls, self.settings)
 
diff --git a/scrapy/downloadermiddlewares/ajaxcrawl.py b/scrapy/downloadermiddlewares/ajaxcrawl.py
index ba50793bb..7a140fcad 100644
--- a/scrapy/downloadermiddlewares/ajaxcrawl.py
+++ b/scrapy/downloadermiddlewares/ajaxcrawl.py
@@ -1,9 +1,7 @@
 # -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
-from __future__ import absolute_import
 import re
 import logging
 
-import six
 from w3lib import html
 
 from scrapy.exceptions import NotConfigured
@@ -67,7 +65,7 @@ class AjaxCrawlMiddleware(object):
 
 
 # XXX: move it to w3lib?
-_ajax_crawlable_re = re.compile(six.u(r'<meta\s+name=["\']fragment["\']\s+content=["\']!["\']/?>'))
+_ajax_crawlable_re = re.compile(r'<meta\s+name=["\']fragment["\']\s+content=["\']!["\']/?>')
 
 
 def _has_ajaxcrawlable_meta(text):
diff --git a/scrapy/downloadermiddlewares/cookies.py b/scrapy/downloadermiddlewares/cookies.py
index 0d2b9900c..d8dabdf13 100644
--- a/scrapy/downloadermiddlewares/cookies.py
+++ b/scrapy/downloadermiddlewares/cookies.py
@@ -1,5 +1,3 @@
-import os
-import six
 import logging
 from collections import defaultdict
 
@@ -8,6 +6,7 @@ from scrapy.http import Response
 from scrapy.http.cookies import CookieJar
 from scrapy.utils.python import to_unicode
 
+
 logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
 
 
@@ -82,8 +81,10 @@ class CookiesMiddleware(object):
 
     def _get_request_cookies(self, jar, request):
         if isinstance(request.cookies, dict):
-            cookie_list = [{'name': k, 'value': v} for k, v in \
-                    six.iteritems(request.cookies)]
+            cookie_list = [
+                {'name': k, 'value': v}
+                for k, v in request.cookies.items()
+            ]
         else:
             cookie_list = request.cookies
 
diff --git a/scrapy/downloadermiddlewares/decompression.py b/scrapy/downloadermiddlewares/decompression.py
index e2d73f347..fcea38ef5 100644
--- a/scrapy/downloadermiddlewares/decompression.py
+++ b/scrapy/downloadermiddlewares/decompression.py
@@ -4,16 +4,15 @@ and extract the potentially compressed responses that may arrive.
 
 import bz2
 import gzip
-from io import BytesIO
-import zipfile
-import tarfile
 import logging
+import tarfile
+import zipfile
+from io import BytesIO
 from tempfile import mktemp
 
-import six
-
 from scrapy.responsetypes import responsetypes
 
+
 logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
 
 
@@ -75,7 +74,7 @@ class DecompressionMiddleware(object):
         if not response.body:
             return response
 
-        for fmt, func in six.iteritems(self._formats):
+        for fmt, func in self._formats.items():
             new_response = func(response)
             if new_response:
                 logger.debug('Decompressed response with format: %(responsefmt)s',
diff --git a/scrapy/downloadermiddlewares/httpcache.py b/scrapy/downloadermiddlewares/httpcache.py
index 495b103d1..4e06f8236 100644
--- a/scrapy/downloadermiddlewares/httpcache.py
+++ b/scrapy/downloadermiddlewares/httpcache.py
@@ -1,11 +1,19 @@
 from email.utils import formatdate
+
 from twisted.internet import defer
-from twisted.internet.error import TimeoutError, DNSLookupError, \
-        ConnectionRefusedError, ConnectionDone, ConnectError, \
-        ConnectionLost, TCPTimedOutError
+from twisted.internet.error import (
+    ConnectError,
+    ConnectionDone,
+    ConnectionLost,
+    ConnectionRefusedError,
+    DNSLookupError,
+    TCPTimedOutError,
+    TimeoutError,
+)
 from twisted.web.client import ResponseFailed
+
 from scrapy import signals
-from scrapy.exceptions import NotConfigured, IgnoreRequest
+from scrapy.exceptions import IgnoreRequest, NotConfigured
 from scrapy.utils.misc import load_object
 
 
diff --git a/scrapy/downloadermiddlewares/httpproxy.py b/scrapy/downloadermiddlewares/httpproxy.py
index 2212d9688..814ce78fe 100644
--- a/scrapy/downloadermiddlewares/httpproxy.py
+++ b/scrapy/downloadermiddlewares/httpproxy.py
@@ -1,7 +1,6 @@
 import base64
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import unquote, urlunparse
-from six.moves.urllib.request import getproxies, proxy_bypass
-from urllib.request import _parse_proxy
+from urllib.parse import unquote, urlunparse
+from urllib.request import getproxies, proxy_bypass, _parse_proxy
 
 from scrapy.exceptions import NotConfigured
 from scrapy.utils.httpobj import urlparse_cached
diff --git a/scrapy/downloadermiddlewares/redirect.py b/scrapy/downloadermiddlewares/redirect.py
index b73f864dd..77cb5aa94 100644
--- a/scrapy/downloadermiddlewares/redirect.py
+++ b/scrapy/downloadermiddlewares/redirect.py
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 import logging
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urljoin, urlparse
+from urllib.parse import urljoin, urlparse
 
 from w3lib.url import safe_url_string
 
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@ from scrapy.http import HtmlResponse
 from scrapy.utils.response import get_meta_refresh
 from scrapy.exceptions import IgnoreRequest, NotConfigured
 
+
 logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
 
 
diff --git a/scrapy/dupefilters.py b/scrapy/dupefilters.py
index 4d95eb847..ea6a4cfc3 100644
--- a/scrapy/dupefilters.py
+++ b/scrapy/dupefilters.py
@@ -1,4 +1,3 @@
-from __future__ import print_function
 import os
 import logging
 
diff --git a/scrapy/exporters.py b/scrapy/exporters.py
index 3defafd60..fcb55da67 100644
--- a/scrapy/exporters.py
+++ b/scrapy/exporters.py
@@ -6,15 +6,14 @@ import csv
 import io
 import pprint
 import marshal
-import six
-from six.moves import cPickle as pickle
+import warnings
+import pickle
 from xml.sax.saxutils import XMLGenerator
 
 from scrapy.utils.serialize import ScrapyJSONEncoder
 from scrapy.utils.python import to_bytes, to_unicode, is_listlike
 from scrapy.item import BaseItem
 from scrapy.exceptions import ScrapyDeprecationWarning
-import warnings
 
 
 __all__ = ['BaseItemExporter', 'PprintItemExporter', 'PickleItemExporter',
@@ -60,9 +59,9 @@ class BaseItemExporter(object):
             include_empty = self.export_empty_fields
         if self.fields_to_export is None:
             if include_empty and not isinstance(item, dict):
-                field_iter = six.iterkeys(item.fields)
+                field_iter = item.fields.keys()
             else:
-                field_iter = six.iterkeys(item)
+                field_iter = item.keys()
         else:
             if include_empty:
                 field_iter = self.fields_to_export
@@ -180,7 +179,7 @@ class XmlItemExporter(BaseItemExporter):
             for value in serialized_value:
                 self._export_xml_field('value', value, depth=depth+1)
             self._beautify_indent(depth=depth)
-        elif isinstance(serialized_value, six.text_type):
+        elif isinstance(serialized_value, str):
             self.xg.characters(serialized_value)
         else:
             self.xg.characters(str(serialized_value))
@@ -319,12 +318,12 @@ class PythonItemExporter(BaseItemExporter):
         if is_listlike(value):
             return [self._serialize_value(v) for v in value]
         encode_func = to_bytes if self.binary else to_unicode
-        if isinstance(value, (six.text_type, bytes)):
+        if isinstance(value, (str, bytes)):
             return encode_func(value, encoding=self.encoding)
         return value
 
     def _serialize_dict(self, value):
-        for key, val in six.iteritems(value):
+        for key, val in value.items():
             key = to_bytes(key) if self.binary else key
             yield key, self._serialize_value(val)
 
diff --git a/scrapy/extensions/feedexport.py b/scrapy/extensions/feedexport.py
index e2492d506..11a63ced2 100644
--- a/scrapy/extensions/feedexport.py
+++ b/scrapy/extensions/feedexport.py
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ import logging
 import posixpath
 from tempfile import NamedTemporaryFile
 from datetime import datetime
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urlparse, unquote
+from urllib.parse import urlparse, unquote
 from ftplib import FTP
 
 from zope.interface import Interface, implementer
diff --git a/scrapy/extensions/httpcache.py b/scrapy/extensions/httpcache.py
index 11403957c..91850683f 100644
--- a/scrapy/extensions/httpcache.py
+++ b/scrapy/extensions/httpcache.py
@@ -1,14 +1,12 @@
-from __future__ import print_function
-
 import gzip
 import logging
 import os
+import pickle
 from email.utils import mktime_tz, parsedate_tz
 from importlib import import_module
 from time import time
 from weakref import WeakKeyDictionary
 
-from six.moves import cPickle as pickle
 from w3lib.http import headers_raw_to_dict, headers_dict_to_raw
 
 from scrapy.http import Headers, Response
diff --git a/scrapy/extensions/memdebug.py b/scrapy/extensions/memdebug.py
index 263d8ce4c..892aa8a86 100644
--- a/scrapy/extensions/memdebug.py
+++ b/scrapy/extensions/memdebug.py
@@ -5,7 +5,6 @@ See documentation in docs/topics/extensions.rst
 """
 
 import gc
-import six
 
 from scrapy import signals
 from scrapy.exceptions import NotConfigured
@@ -28,7 +27,7 @@ class MemoryDebugger(object):
     def spider_closed(self, spider, reason):
         gc.collect()
         self.stats.set_value('memdebug/gc_garbage_count', len(gc.garbage), spider=spider)
-        for cls, wdict in six.iteritems(live_refs):
+        for cls, wdict in live_refs.items():
             if not wdict:
                 continue
             self.stats.set_value('memdebug/live_refs/%s' % cls.__name__, len(wdict), spider=spider)
diff --git a/scrapy/extensions/spiderstate.py b/scrapy/extensions/spiderstate.py
index 8ba770ec0..2c8e46914 100644
--- a/scrapy/extensions/spiderstate.py
+++ b/scrapy/extensions/spiderstate.py
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 import os
-from six.moves import cPickle as pickle
+import pickle
 
 from scrapy import signals
 from scrapy.exceptions import NotConfigured
diff --git a/scrapy/http/cookies.py b/scrapy/http/cookies.py
index 60a14c6f8..0903fd4f8 100644
--- a/scrapy/http/cookies.py
+++ b/scrapy/http/cookies.py
@@ -1,7 +1,6 @@
 import time
-from six.moves.http_cookiejar import (
-    CookieJar as _CookieJar, DefaultCookiePolicy, IPV4_RE
-)
+from http.cookiejar import CookieJar as _CookieJar, DefaultCookiePolicy, IPV4_RE
+
 from scrapy.utils.httpobj import urlparse_cached
 from scrapy.utils.python import to_unicode
 
diff --git a/scrapy/http/headers.py b/scrapy/http/headers.py
index f3b46b994..dcaaeddfa 100644
--- a/scrapy/http/headers.py
+++ b/scrapy/http/headers.py
@@ -1,4 +1,3 @@
-import six
 from w3lib.http import headers_dict_to_raw
 from scrapy.utils.datatypes import CaselessDict
 from scrapy.utils.python import to_unicode
@@ -19,7 +18,7 @@ class Headers(CaselessDict):
         """Normalize values to bytes"""
         if value is None:
             value = []
-        elif isinstance(value, (six.text_type, bytes)):
+        elif isinstance(value, (str, bytes)):
             value = [value]
         elif not hasattr(value, '__iter__'):
             value = [value]
@@ -29,10 +28,10 @@ class Headers(CaselessDict):
     def _tobytes(self, x):
         if isinstance(x, bytes):
             return x
-        elif isinstance(x, six.text_type):
+        elif isinstance(x, str):
             return x.encode(self.encoding)
         elif isinstance(x, int):
-            return six.text_type(x).encode(self.encoding)
+            return str(x).encode(self.encoding)
         else:
             raise TypeError('Unsupported value type: {}'.format(type(x)))
 
@@ -68,9 +67,6 @@ class Headers(CaselessDict):
         self[key] = lst
 
     def items(self):
-        return list(self.iteritems())
-
-    def iteritems(self):
         return ((k, self.getlist(k)) for k in self.keys())
 
     def values(self):
diff --git a/scrapy/http/request/__init__.py b/scrapy/http/request/__init__.py
index 76a428199..b5c8e1a9a 100644
--- a/scrapy/http/request/__init__.py
+++ b/scrapy/http/request/__init__.py
@@ -4,7 +4,6 @@ requests in Scrapy.
 
 See documentation in docs/topics/request-response.rst
 """
-import six
 from w3lib.url import safe_url_string
 
 from scrapy.http.headers import Headers
@@ -60,7 +59,7 @@ class Request(object_ref):
         return self._url
 
     def _set_url(self, url):
-        if not isinstance(url, six.string_types):
+        if not isinstance(url, str):
             raise TypeError('Request url must be str or unicode, got %s:' % type(url).__name__)
 
         s = safe_url_string(url, self.encoding)
diff --git a/scrapy/http/request/form.py b/scrapy/http/request/form.py
index b6feede07..af02c8484 100644
--- a/scrapy/http/request/form.py
+++ b/scrapy/http/request/form.py
@@ -5,8 +5,7 @@ This module implements the FormRequest class which is a more convenient class
 See documentation in docs/topics/request-response.rst
 """
 
-import six
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urljoin, urlencode
+from urllib.parse import urljoin, urlencode
 
 import lxml.html
 from parsel.selector import create_root_node
@@ -208,7 +207,7 @@ def _get_clickable(clickdata, form):
     # We didn't find it, so now we build an XPath expression out of the other
     # arguments, because they can be used as such
     xpath = u'.//*' + \
-            u''.join(u'[@%s="%s"]' % c for c in six.iteritems(clickdata))
+            u''.join(u'[@%s="%s"]' % c for c in clickdata.items())
     el = form.xpath(xpath)
     if len(el) == 1:
         return (el[0].get('name'), el[0].get('value') or '')
diff --git a/scrapy/http/request/rpc.py b/scrapy/http/request/rpc.py
index bd09f7534..811d3ad6b 100644
--- a/scrapy/http/request/rpc.py
+++ b/scrapy/http/request/rpc.py
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ This module implements the XmlRpcRequest class which is a more convenient class
 
 See documentation in docs/topics/request-response.rst
 """
-from six.moves import xmlrpc_client as xmlrpclib
+import xmlrpc.client as xmlrpclib
 
 from scrapy.http.request import Request
 from scrapy.utils.python import get_func_args
diff --git a/scrapy/http/response/__init__.py b/scrapy/http/response/__init__.py
index b9e638551..f92d0901c 100644
--- a/scrapy/http/response/__init__.py
+++ b/scrapy/http/response/__init__.py
@@ -5,15 +5,14 @@ responses in Scrapy.
 See documentation in docs/topics/request-response.rst
 """
 from typing import Generator
+from urllib.parse import urljoin
 
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urljoin
-
-from scrapy.http.request import Request
+from scrapy.exceptions import NotSupported
+from scrapy.http.common import obsolete_setter
 from scrapy.http.headers import Headers
+from scrapy.http.request import Request
 from scrapy.link import Link
 from scrapy.utils.trackref import object_ref
-from scrapy.http.common import obsolete_setter
-from scrapy.exceptions import NotSupported
 
 
 class Response(object_ref):
diff --git a/scrapy/http/response/text.py b/scrapy/http/response/text.py
index e3646b2d5..09049c157 100644
--- a/scrapy/http/response/text.py
+++ b/scrapy/http/response/text.py
@@ -10,7 +10,6 @@ from typing import Generator
 from urllib.parse import urljoin
 
 import parsel
-import six
 from w3lib.encoding import (html_body_declared_encoding, html_to_unicode,
                             http_content_type_encoding, resolve_encoding)
 from w3lib.html import strip_html5_whitespace
@@ -33,14 +32,14 @@ class TextResponse(Response):
         super(TextResponse, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
 
     def _set_url(self, url):
-        if isinstance(url, six.text_type):
+        if isinstance(url, str):
             self._url = to_unicode(url, self.encoding)
         else:
             super(TextResponse, self)._set_url(url)
 
     def _set_body(self, body):
         self._body = b''  # used by encoding detection
-        if isinstance(body, six.text_type):
+        if isinstance(body, str):
             if self._encoding is None:
                 raise TypeError('Cannot convert unicode body - %s has no encoding' %
                                 type(self).__name__)
@@ -226,7 +225,7 @@ class _InvalidSelector(ValueError):
 
 def _url_from_selector(sel):
     # type: (parsel.Selector) -> str
-    if isinstance(sel.root, six.string_types):
+    if isinstance(sel.root, str):
         # e.g. ::attr(href) result
         return strip_html5_whitespace(sel.root)
     if not hasattr(sel.root, 'tag'):
diff --git a/scrapy/item.py b/scrapy/item.py
index 32f9b2ebb..1d39b48b2 100644
--- a/scrapy/item.py
+++ b/scrapy/item.py
@@ -10,8 +10,6 @@ from copy import deepcopy
 from pprint import pformat
 from warnings import warn
 
-import six
-
 from scrapy.utils.deprecate import ScrapyDeprecationWarning
 from scrapy.utils.trackref import object_ref
 
@@ -78,7 +76,7 @@ class DictItem(MutableMapping, BaseItem):
     def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
         self._values = {}
         if args or kwargs:  # avoid creating dict for most common case
-            for k, v in six.iteritems(dict(*args, **kwargs)):
+            for k, v in dict(*args, **kwargs).items():
                 self[k] = v
 
     def __getitem__(self, key):
@@ -130,6 +128,5 @@ class DictItem(MutableMapping, BaseItem):
         return deepcopy(self)
 
 
-@six.add_metaclass(ItemMeta)
-class Item(DictItem):
+class Item(DictItem, metaclass=ItemMeta):
     pass
diff --git a/scrapy/linkextractors/__init__.py b/scrapy/linkextractors/__init__.py
index 8c3693f04..4a3e74fbe 100644
--- a/scrapy/linkextractors/__init__.py
+++ b/scrapy/linkextractors/__init__.py
@@ -6,8 +6,8 @@ This package contains a collection of Link Extractors.
 For more info see docs/topics/link-extractors.rst
 """
 import re
+from urllib.parse import urlparse
 
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urlparse
 from parsel.csstranslator import HTMLTranslator
 from w3lib.url import canonicalize_url
 
@@ -118,4 +118,4 @@ class FilteringLinkExtractor(object):
 
 
 # Top-level imports
-from .lxmlhtml import LxmlLinkExtractor as LinkExtractor  # noqa: F401
+from scrapy.linkextractors.lxmlhtml import LxmlLinkExtractor as LinkExtractor  # noqa: F401
diff --git a/scrapy/linkextractors/htmlparser.py b/scrapy/linkextractors/htmlparser.py
index 27978a8a1..0425d4340 100644
--- a/scrapy/linkextractors/htmlparser.py
+++ b/scrapy/linkextractors/htmlparser.py
@@ -2,9 +2,8 @@
 HTMLParser-based link extractor
 """
 import warnings
-import six
-from six.moves.html_parser import HTMLParser
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urljoin
+from html.parser import HTMLParser
+from urllib.parse import urljoin
 
 from w3lib.url import safe_url_string
 from w3lib.html import strip_html5_whitespace
@@ -42,7 +41,7 @@ class HtmlParserLinkExtractor(HTMLParser):
         ret = []
         base_url = urljoin(response_url, self.base_url) if self.base_url else response_url
         for link in links:
-            if isinstance(link.url, six.text_type):
+            if isinstance(link.url, str):
                 link.url = link.url.encode(response_encoding)
             try:
                 link.url = urljoin(base_url, link.url)
diff --git a/scrapy/linkextractors/lxmlhtml.py b/scrapy/linkextractors/lxmlhtml.py
index 890c019c8..cb55e805a 100644
--- a/scrapy/linkextractors/lxmlhtml.py
+++ b/scrapy/linkextractors/lxmlhtml.py
@@ -1,8 +1,7 @@
 """
 Link extractor based on lxml.html
 """
-import six
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urljoin
+from urllib.parse import urljoin
 
 import lxml.etree as etree
 from w3lib.html import strip_html5_whitespace
@@ -22,7 +21,7 @@ _collect_string_content = etree.XPath("string()")
 
 
 def _nons(tag):
-    if isinstance(tag, six.string_types):
+    if isinstance(tag, str):
         if tag[0] == '{' and tag[1:len(XHTML_NAMESPACE)+1] == XHTML_NAMESPACE:
             return tag.split('}')[-1]
     return tag
diff --git a/scrapy/linkextractors/regex.py b/scrapy/linkextractors/regex.py
index e689b4727..3f2557248 100644
--- a/scrapy/linkextractors/regex.py
+++ b/scrapy/linkextractors/regex.py
@@ -1,10 +1,11 @@
 import re
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urljoin
+from urllib.parse import urljoin
 
 from w3lib.html import remove_tags, replace_entities, replace_escape_chars, get_base_url
 
 from scrapy.link import Link
-from .sgml import SgmlLinkExtractor
+from scrapy.linkextractors.sgml import SgmlLinkExtractor
+
 
 linkre = re.compile(
         "<a\s.*?href=(\"[.#]+?\"|\'[.#]+?\'|[^\s]+?)(>|\s.*?>)(.*?)<[/ ]?a>",
diff --git a/scrapy/linkextractors/sgml.py b/scrapy/linkextractors/sgml.py
index 8940a4d77..2ba6bca45 100644
--- a/scrapy/linkextractors/sgml.py
+++ b/scrapy/linkextractors/sgml.py
@@ -1,9 +1,8 @@
 """
 SGMLParser-based Link extractors
 """
-import six
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urljoin
 import warnings
+from urllib.parse import urljoin
 from sgmllib import SGMLParser
 
 from w3lib.url import safe_url_string, canonicalize_url
@@ -49,7 +48,7 @@ class BaseSgmlLinkExtractor(SGMLParser):
         if base_url is None:
             base_url = urljoin(response_url, self.base_url) if self.base_url else response_url
         for link in self.links:
-            if isinstance(link.url, six.text_type):
+            if isinstance(link.url, str):
                 link.url = link.url.encode(response_encoding)
             try:
                 link.url = urljoin(base_url, link.url)
diff --git a/scrapy/loader/__init__.py b/scrapy/loader/__init__.py
index 60fd6d222..7cf67e29e 100644
--- a/scrapy/loader/__init__.py
+++ b/scrapy/loader/__init__.py
@@ -4,8 +4,7 @@ Item Loader
 See documentation in docs/topics/loaders.rst
 """
 from collections import defaultdict
-
-import six
+from contextlib import suppress
 
 from scrapy.item import Item
 from scrapy.loader.common import wrap_loader_context
@@ -15,6 +14,17 @@ from scrapy.utils.misc import arg_to_iter, extract_regex
 from scrapy.utils.python import flatten
 
 
+def unbound_method(method):
+    """
+    Allow to use single-argument functions as input or output processors
+    (no need to define an unused first 'self' argument)
+    """
+    with suppress(AttributeError):
+        if '.' not in method.__qualname__:
+            return method.__func__
+    return method
+
+
 class ItemLoader(object):
 
     default_item_class = Item
@@ -72,7 +82,7 @@ class ItemLoader(object):
         if value is None:
             return
         if not field_name:
-            for k, v in six.iteritems(value):
+            for k, v in value.items():
                 self._add_value(k, v)
         else:
             self._add_value(field_name, value)
@@ -82,7 +92,7 @@ class ItemLoader(object):
         if value is None:
             return
         if not field_name:
-            for k, v in six.iteritems(value):
+            for k, v in value.items():
                 self._replace_value(k, v)
         else:
             self._replace_value(field_name, value)
@@ -142,14 +152,14 @@ class ItemLoader(object):
         if not proc:
             proc = self._get_item_field_attr(field_name, 'input_processor',
                                              self.default_input_processor)
-        return proc
+        return unbound_method(proc)
 
     def get_output_processor(self, field_name):
         proc = getattr(self, '%s_out' % field_name, None)
         if not proc:
             proc = self._get_item_field_attr(field_name, 'output_processor',
                                              self.default_output_processor)
-        return proc
+        return unbound_method(proc)
 
     def _process_input_value(self, field_name, value):
         proc = self.get_input_processor(field_name)
diff --git a/scrapy/mail.py b/scrapy/mail.py
index d24de2212..891bb5e09 100644
--- a/scrapy/mail.py
+++ b/scrapy/mail.py
@@ -3,21 +3,21 @@ Mail sending helpers
 
 See documentation in docs/topics/email.rst
 """
-from io import BytesIO
 import logging
-
-from email.utils import COMMASPACE, formatdate
-from six.moves.email_mime_multipart import MIMEMultipart
-from six.moves.email_mime_text import MIMEText
-from six.moves.email_mime_base import MIMEBase
-from email.mime.nonmultipart import MIMENonMultipart
 from email import encoders as Encoders
+from email.mime.base import MIMEBase
+from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart
+from email.mime.nonmultipart import MIMENonMultipart
+from email.mime.text import MIMEText
+from email.utils import COMMASPACE, formatdate
+from io import BytesIO
 
 from twisted.internet import defer, reactor, ssl
 
 from scrapy.utils.misc import arg_to_iter
 from scrapy.utils.python import to_bytes
 
+
 logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
 
 
diff --git a/scrapy/pipelines/files.py b/scrapy/pipelines/files.py
index 8d74c5011..6d55c8980 100644
--- a/scrapy/pipelines/files.py
+++ b/scrapy/pipelines/files.py
@@ -5,16 +5,14 @@ See documentation in topics/media-pipeline.rst
 """
 import functools
 import hashlib
-from io import BytesIO
+import logging
 import mimetypes
 import os
-import os.path
 import time
-import logging
-from email.utils import parsedate_tz, mktime_tz
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urlparse
 from collections import defaultdict
-import six
+from email.utils import parsedate_tz, mktime_tz
+from io import BytesIO
+from urllib.parse import urlparse
 
 from twisted.internet import defer, threads
 
@@ -29,6 +27,7 @@ from scrapy.utils.request import referer_str
 from scrapy.utils.boto import is_botocore
 from scrapy.utils.datatypes import CaselessDict
 
+
 logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
 
 
@@ -153,14 +152,14 @@ class S3FilesStore(object):
                 Bucket=self.bucket,
                 Key=key_name,
                 Body=buf,
-                Metadata={k: str(v) for k, v in six.iteritems(meta or {})},
+                Metadata={k: str(v) for k, v in (meta or {}).items()},
                 ACL=self.POLICY,
                 **extra)
         else:
             b = self._get_boto_bucket()
             k = b.new_key(key_name)
             if meta:
-                for metakey, metavalue in six.iteritems(meta):
+                for metakey, metavalue in meta.items():
                     k.set_metadata(metakey, str(metavalue))
             h = self.HEADERS.copy()
             if headers:
@@ -201,7 +200,7 @@ class S3FilesStore(object):
             'X-Amz-Website-Redirect-Location': 'WebsiteRedirectLocation',
         })
         extra = {}
-        for key, value in six.iteritems(headers):
+        for key, value in headers.items():
             try:
                 kwarg = mapping[key]
             except KeyError:
@@ -249,7 +248,7 @@ class GCSFilesStore(object):
     def persist_file(self, path, buf, info, meta=None, headers=None):
         blob = self.bucket.blob(self.prefix + path)
         blob.cache_control = self.CACHE_CONTROL
-        blob.metadata = {k: str(v) for k, v in six.iteritems(meta or {})}
+        blob.metadata = {k: str(v) for k, v in (meta or {}).items()}
         return threads.deferToThread(
             blob.upload_from_string,
             data=buf.getvalue(),
diff --git a/scrapy/pipelines/images.py b/scrapy/pipelines/images.py
index e77cef4ff..e9c6b759c 100644
--- a/scrapy/pipelines/images.py
+++ b/scrapy/pipelines/images.py
@@ -6,7 +6,6 @@ See documentation in topics/media-pipeline.rst
 import functools
 import hashlib
 from io import BytesIO
-import six
 
 from PIL import Image
 
@@ -126,7 +125,7 @@ class ImagesPipeline(FilesPipeline):
         image, buf = self.convert_image(orig_image)
         yield path, image, buf
 
-        for thumb_id, size in six.iteritems(self.thumbs):
+        for thumb_id, size in self.thumbs.items():
             thumb_path = self.thumb_path(request, thumb_id, response=response, info=info)
             thumb_image, thumb_buf = self.convert_image(image, size)
             yield thumb_path, thumb_image, thumb_buf
diff --git a/scrapy/pipelines/media.py b/scrapy/pipelines/media.py
index 95dca9a3f..c174addf9 100644
--- a/scrapy/pipelines/media.py
+++ b/scrapy/pipelines/media.py
@@ -1,5 +1,3 @@
-from __future__ import print_function
-
 import functools
 import logging
 from collections import defaultdict
diff --git a/scrapy/responsetypes.py b/scrapy/responsetypes.py
index de62276c8..91d309147 100644
--- a/scrapy/responsetypes.py
+++ b/scrapy/responsetypes.py
@@ -2,11 +2,9 @@
 This module implements a class which returns the appropriate Response class
 based on different criteria.
 """
-from __future__ import absolute_import
 from mimetypes import MimeTypes
 from pkgutil import get_data
 from io import StringIO
-import six
 
 from scrapy.http import Response
 from scrapy.utils.misc import load_object
@@ -37,7 +35,7 @@ class ResponseTypes(object):
         self.mimetypes = MimeTypes()
         mimedata = get_data('scrapy', 'mime.types').decode('utf8')
         self.mimetypes.readfp(StringIO(mimedata))
-        for mimetype, cls in six.iteritems(self.CLASSES):
+        for mimetype, cls in self.CLASSES.items():
             self.classes[mimetype] = load_object(cls)
 
     def from_mimetype(self, mimetype):
diff --git a/scrapy/robotstxt.py b/scrapy/robotstxt.py
index f0f9c59dc..0a9af3a62 100644
--- a/scrapy/robotstxt.py
+++ b/scrapy/robotstxt.py
@@ -1,7 +1,6 @@
 import sys
 import logging
 from abc import ABCMeta, abstractmethod
-from six import with_metaclass
 
 from scrapy.utils.python import to_unicode
 
@@ -26,7 +25,7 @@ def decode_robotstxt(robotstxt_body, spider, to_native_str_type=False):
     return robotstxt_body
 
 
-class RobotParser(with_metaclass(ABCMeta)):
+class RobotParser(metaclass=ABCMeta):
     @classmethod
     @abstractmethod
     def from_crawler(cls, crawler, robotstxt_body):
@@ -56,7 +55,7 @@ class RobotParser(with_metaclass(ABCMeta)):
 
 class PythonRobotParser(RobotParser):
     def __init__(self, robotstxt_body, spider):
-        from six.moves.urllib_robotparser import RobotFileParser
+        from urllib.robotparser import RobotFileParser
         self.spider = spider
         robotstxt_body = decode_robotstxt(robotstxt_body, spider, to_native_str_type=True)
         self.rp = RobotFileParser()
diff --git a/scrapy/settings/__init__.py b/scrapy/settings/__init__.py
index c871e86e0..b6133619c 100644
--- a/scrapy/settings/__init__.py
+++ b/scrapy/settings/__init__.py
@@ -1,4 +1,3 @@
-import six
 import json
 import copy
 from collections.abc import MutableMapping
@@ -23,7 +22,7 @@ def get_settings_priority(priority):
     :attr:`~scrapy.settings.SETTINGS_PRIORITIES` dictionary and returns its
     numerical value, or directly returns a given numerical priority.
     """
-    if isinstance(priority, six.string_types):
+    if isinstance(priority, str):
         return SETTINGS_PRIORITIES[priority]
     else:
         return priority
@@ -173,7 +172,7 @@ class BaseSettings(MutableMapping):
         :type default: any
         """
         value = self.get(name, default or [])
-        if isinstance(value, six.string_types):
+        if isinstance(value, str):
             value = value.split(',')
         return list(value)
 
@@ -194,7 +193,7 @@ class BaseSettings(MutableMapping):
         :type default: any
         """
         value = self.get(name, default or {})
-        if isinstance(value, six.string_types):
+        if isinstance(value, str):
             value = json.loads(value)
         return dict(value)
 
@@ -284,7 +283,7 @@ class BaseSettings(MutableMapping):
         :type priority: string or int
         """
         self._assert_mutability()
-        if isinstance(module, six.string_types):
+        if isinstance(module, str):
             module = import_module(module)
         for key in dir(module):
             if key.isupper():
@@ -313,14 +312,14 @@ class BaseSettings(MutableMapping):
         :type priority: string or int
         """
         self._assert_mutability()
-        if isinstance(values, six.string_types):
+        if isinstance(values, str):
             values = json.loads(values)
         if values is not None:
             if isinstance(values, BaseSettings):
-                for name, value in six.iteritems(values):
+                for name, value in values.items():
                     self.set(name, value, values.getpriority(name))
             else:
-                for name, value in six.iteritems(values):
+                for name, value in values.items():
                     self.set(name, value, priority)
 
     def delete(self, name, priority='project'):
@@ -377,7 +376,7 @@ class BaseSettings(MutableMapping):
 
     def _to_dict(self):
         return {k: (v._to_dict() if isinstance(v, BaseSettings) else v)
-                for k, v in six.iteritems(self)}
+                for k, v in self.items()}
 
     def copy_to_dict(self):
         """
@@ -445,7 +444,7 @@ class Settings(BaseSettings):
         self.setmodule(default_settings, 'default')
         # Promote default dictionaries to BaseSettings instances for per-key
         # priorities
-        for name, val in six.iteritems(self):
+        for name, val in self.items():
             if isinstance(val, dict):
                 self.set(name, BaseSettings(val, 'default'), 'default')
         self.update(values, priority)
diff --git a/scrapy/shell.py b/scrapy/shell.py
index 80b625633..a649d555f 100644
--- a/scrapy/shell.py
+++ b/scrapy/shell.py
@@ -3,8 +3,6 @@
 See documentation in docs/topics/shell.rst
 
 """
-from __future__ import print_function
-
 import os
 import signal
 import warnings
diff --git a/scrapy/signalmanager.py b/scrapy/signalmanager.py
index 9a160f62e..481d97e9a 100644
--- a/scrapy/signalmanager.py
+++ b/scrapy/signalmanager.py
@@ -1,4 +1,3 @@
-from __future__ import absolute_import
 from pydispatch import dispatcher
 from scrapy.utils import signal as _signal
 
diff --git a/scrapy/spiderloader.py b/scrapy/spiderloader.py
index 7478faa78..3beca4060 100644
--- a/scrapy/spiderloader.py
+++ b/scrapy/spiderloader.py
@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@
 # -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
-from __future__ import absolute_import
 from collections import defaultdict
 import traceback
 import warnings
diff --git a/scrapy/spidermiddlewares/referer.py b/scrapy/spidermiddlewares/referer.py
index c76e4d5a2..dce2b3598 100644
--- a/scrapy/spidermiddlewares/referer.py
+++ b/scrapy/spidermiddlewares/referer.py
@@ -2,8 +2,8 @@
 RefererMiddleware: populates Request referer field, based on the Response which
 originated it.
 """
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urlparse
 import warnings
+from urllib.parse import urlparse
 
 from w3lib.url import safe_url_string
 
diff --git a/scrapy/spiders/__init__.py b/scrapy/spiders/__init__.py
index 8d15dfceb..9429f6cb2 100644
--- a/scrapy/spiders/__init__.py
+++ b/scrapy/spiders/__init__.py
@@ -57,6 +57,11 @@ class Spider(object_ref):
 
     def start_requests(self):
         cls = self.__class__
+        if not self.start_urls and hasattr(self, 'start_url'):
+            raise AttributeError(
+                "Crawling could not start: 'start_urls' not found "
+                "or empty (but found 'start_url' attribute instead, "
+                "did you miss an 's'?)")
         if method_is_overridden(cls, Spider, 'make_requests_from_url'):
             warnings.warn(
                 "Spider.make_requests_from_url method is deprecated; it "
diff --git a/scrapy/spiders/crawl.py b/scrapy/spiders/crawl.py
index 03000ce54..a5eb1a518 100644
--- a/scrapy/spiders/crawl.py
+++ b/scrapy/spiders/crawl.py
@@ -8,8 +8,6 @@ See documentation in docs/topics/spiders.rst
 import copy
 import warnings
 
-import six
-
 from scrapy.exceptions import ScrapyDeprecationWarning
 from scrapy.http import Request, HtmlResponse
 from scrapy.linkextractors import LinkExtractor
@@ -25,7 +23,7 @@ def _identity(request, response):
 def _get_method(method, spider):
     if callable(method):
         return method
-    elif isinstance(method, six.string_types):
+    elif isinstance(method, str):
         return getattr(spider, method, None)
 
 
diff --git a/scrapy/spiders/sitemap.py b/scrapy/spiders/sitemap.py
index 534c45c70..d368c7108 100644
--- a/scrapy/spiders/sitemap.py
+++ b/scrapy/spiders/sitemap.py
@@ -1,6 +1,5 @@
 import re
 import logging
-import six
 
 from scrapy.spiders import Spider
 from scrapy.http import Request, XmlResponse
@@ -22,7 +21,7 @@ class SitemapSpider(Spider):
         super(SitemapSpider, self).__init__(*a, **kw)
         self._cbs = []
         for r, c in self.sitemap_rules:
-            if isinstance(c, six.string_types):
+            if isinstance(c, str):
                 c = getattr(self, c)
             self._cbs.append((regex(r), c))
         self._follow = [regex(x) for x in self.sitemap_follow]
@@ -86,7 +85,7 @@ class SitemapSpider(Spider):
 
 
 def regex(x):
-    if isinstance(x, six.string_types):
+    if isinstance(x, str):
         return re.compile(x)
     return x
 
diff --git a/scrapy/squeues.py b/scrapy/squeues.py
index 30cc926e5..d5d3be67e 100644
--- a/scrapy/squeues.py
+++ b/scrapy/squeues.py
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ Scheduler queues
 """
 
 import marshal
-from six.moves import cPickle as pickle
+import pickle
 
 from queuelib import queue
 
diff --git a/scrapy/utils/benchserver.py b/scrapy/utils/benchserver.py
index 5bbda6e27..cdbe21942 100644
--- a/scrapy/utils/benchserver.py
+++ b/scrapy/utils/benchserver.py
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 import random
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urlencode
+from urllib.parse import urlencode
+
 from twisted.web.server import Site
 from twisted.web.resource import Resource
 from twisted.internet import reactor
diff --git a/scrapy/utils/boto.py b/scrapy/utils/boto.py
index b76d5e56e..12321caa5 100644
--- a/scrapy/utils/boto.py
+++ b/scrapy/utils/boto.py
@@ -1,7 +1,5 @@
 """Boto/botocore helpers"""
 
-from __future__ import absolute_import
-
 from scrapy.exceptions import NotConfigured
 
 
diff --git a/scrapy/utils/conf.py b/scrapy/utils/conf.py
index 561bb72fc..7a15e77ff 100644
--- a/scrapy/utils/conf.py
+++ b/scrapy/utils/conf.py
@@ -1,11 +1,9 @@
-from configparser import ConfigParser
 import os
 import sys
 import numbers
+from configparser import ConfigParser
 from operator import itemgetter
 
-import six
-
 from scrapy.settings import BaseSettings
 from scrapy.utils.deprecate import update_classpath
 from scrapy.utils.python import without_none_values
@@ -22,7 +20,7 @@ def build_component_list(compdict, custom=None, convert=update_classpath):
     def _map_keys(compdict):
         if isinstance(compdict, BaseSettings):
             compbs = BaseSettings()
-            for k, v in six.iteritems(compdict):
+            for k, v in compdict.items():
                 prio = compdict.getpriority(k)
                 if compbs.getpriority(convert(k)) == prio:
                     raise ValueError('Some paths in {!r} convert to the same '
@@ -33,11 +31,11 @@ def build_component_list(compdict, custom=None, convert=update_classpath):
             return compbs
         else:
             _check_components(compdict)
-            return {convert(k): v for k, v in six.iteritems(compdict)}
+            return {convert(k): v for k, v in compdict.items()}
 
     def _validate_values(compdict):
         """Fail if a value in the components dict is not a real number or None."""
-        for name, value in six.iteritems(compdict):
+        for name, value in compdict.items():
             if value is not None and not isinstance(value, numbers.Real):
                 raise ValueError('Invalid value {} for component {}, please provide ' \
                                  'a real number or None instead'.format(value, name))
@@ -53,7 +51,7 @@ def build_component_list(compdict, custom=None, convert=update_classpath):
 
     _validate_values(compdict)
     compdict = without_none_values(_map_keys(compdict))
-    return [k for k, v in sorted(six.iteritems(compdict), key=itemgetter(1))]
+    return [k for k, v in sorted(compdict.items(), key=itemgetter(1))]
 
 
 def arglist_to_dict(arglist):
diff --git a/scrapy/utils/curl.py b/scrapy/utils/curl.py
index 7fb25a71d..16639356e 100644
--- a/scrapy/utils/curl.py
+++ b/scrapy/utils/curl.py
@@ -1,10 +1,9 @@
 import argparse
 import warnings
 from shlex import split
+from http.cookies import SimpleCookie
+from urllib.parse import urlparse
 
-from six.moves.http_cookies import SimpleCookie
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urlparse
-from six import iteritems
 from w3lib.http import basic_auth_header
 
 
@@ -76,7 +75,7 @@ def curl_to_request_kwargs(curl_command, ignore_unknown_options=True):
         name = name.strip()
         val = val.strip()
         if name.title() == 'Cookie':
-            for name, morsel in iteritems(SimpleCookie(val)):
+            for name, morsel in SimpleCookie(val).items():
                 cookies[name] = morsel.value
         else:
             headers.append((name, val))
diff --git a/scrapy/utils/datatypes.py b/scrapy/utils/datatypes.py
index 39d389fa6..ffd1537c3 100644
--- a/scrapy/utils/datatypes.py
+++ b/scrapy/utils/datatypes.py
@@ -5,12 +5,10 @@ Python Standard Library.
 This module must not depend on any module outside the Standard Library.
 """
 
-import copy
 import collections
-from collections.abc import Mapping
+import copy
 import warnings
-
-import six
+from collections.abc import Mapping
 
 from scrapy.exceptions import ScrapyDeprecationWarning
 
@@ -151,7 +149,7 @@ class MultiValueDict(dict):
                         self.setlistdefault(key, []).append(value)
                 except TypeError:
                     raise ValueError("MultiValueDict.update() takes either a MultiValueDict or dictionary")
-        for key, value in six.iteritems(kwargs):
+        for key, value in kwargs.items():
             self.setlistdefault(key, []).append(value)
 
 
@@ -238,65 +236,6 @@ class CaselessDict(dict):
         return dict.pop(self, self.normkey(key), *args)
 
 
-class MergeDict(object):
-    """
-    A simple class for creating new "virtual" dictionaries that actually look
-    up values in more than one dictionary, passed in the ``__init__`` method.
-
-    If a key appears in more than one of the given dictionaries, only the
-    first occurrence will be used.
-    """
-    def __init__(self, *dicts):
-        warnings.warn(
-            "scrapy.utils.datatypes.MergeDict is deprecated in favor "
-            "of collections.ChainMap (introduced in Python 3.3)",
-            category=ScrapyDeprecationWarning,
-            stacklevel=2,
-        )
-        self.dicts = dicts
-
-    def __getitem__(self, key):
-        for dict_ in self.dicts:
-            try:
-                return dict_[key]
-            except KeyError:
-                pass
-        raise KeyError
-
-    def __copy__(self):
-        return self.__class__(*self.dicts)
-
-    def get(self, key, default=None):
-        try:
-            return self[key]
-        except KeyError:
-            return default
-
-    def getlist(self, key):
-        for dict_ in self.dicts:
-            if key in dict_.keys():
-                return dict_.getlist(key)
-        return []
-
-    def items(self):
-        item_list = []
-        for dict_ in self.dicts:
-            item_list.extend(dict_.items())
-        return item_list
-
-    def has_key(self, key):
-        for dict_ in self.dicts:
-            if key in dict_:
-                return True
-        return False
-
-    __contains__ = has_key
-
-    def copy(self):
-        """Returns a copy of this object."""
-        return self.__copy__()
-
-
 class LocalCache(collections.OrderedDict):
     """Dictionary with a finite number of keys.
 
diff --git a/scrapy/utils/display.py b/scrapy/utils/display.py
index 91ebdae11..9735220ef 100644
--- a/scrapy/utils/display.py
+++ b/scrapy/utils/display.py
@@ -2,7 +2,6 @@
 pprint and pformat wrappers with colorization support
 """
 
-from __future__ import print_function
 import sys
 from pprint import pformat as pformat_
 
diff --git a/scrapy/utils/httpobj.py b/scrapy/utils/httpobj.py
index b2be0a901..c8d4391b1 100644
--- a/scrapy/utils/httpobj.py
+++ b/scrapy/utils/httpobj.py
@@ -1,8 +1,7 @@
 """Helper functions for scrapy.http objects (Request, Response)"""
 
 import weakref
-
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urlparse
+from urllib.parse import urlparse
 
 
 _urlparse_cache = weakref.WeakKeyDictionary()
diff --git a/scrapy/utils/iterators.py b/scrapy/utils/iterators.py
index 9693ba768..3c0cb68c3 100644
--- a/scrapy/utils/iterators.py
+++ b/scrapy/utils/iterators.py
@@ -1,13 +1,13 @@
-import re
 import csv
-from io import StringIO
 import logging
-import six
+import re
+from io import StringIO
 
 from scrapy.http import TextResponse, Response
 from scrapy.selector import Selector
 from scrapy.utils.python import re_rsearch, to_unicode
 
+
 logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
 
 
@@ -60,7 +60,7 @@ class _StreamReader(object):
             self._text, self.encoding = obj.body, obj.encoding
         else:
             self._text, self.encoding = obj, 'utf-8'
-        self._is_unicode = isinstance(self._text, six.text_type)
+        self._is_unicode = isinstance(self._text, str)
 
     def read(self, n=65535):
         self.read = self._read_unicode if self._is_unicode else self._read_string
@@ -125,7 +125,7 @@ def csviter(obj, delimiter=None, headers=None, encoding=None, quotechar=None):
 
 
 def _body_or_str(obj, unicode=True):
-    expected_types = (Response, six.text_type, six.binary_type)
+    expected_types = (Response, str, bytes)
     assert isinstance(obj, expected_types), \
         "obj must be %s, not %s" % (
             " or ".join(t.__name__ for t in expected_types),
@@ -137,7 +137,7 @@ def _body_or_str(obj, unicode=True):
             return obj.text
         else:
             return obj.body.decode('utf-8')
-    elif isinstance(obj, six.text_type):
+    elif isinstance(obj, str):
         return obj if unicode else obj.encode('utf-8')
     else:
         return obj.decode('utf-8') if unicode else obj
diff --git a/scrapy/utils/misc.py b/scrapy/utils/misc.py
index b74f34451..9955fb1e7 100644
--- a/scrapy/utils/misc.py
+++ b/scrapy/utils/misc.py
@@ -6,14 +6,13 @@ from contextlib import contextmanager
 from importlib import import_module
 from pkgutil import iter_modules
 
-import six
 from w3lib.html import replace_entities
 
 from scrapy.utils.python import flatten, to_unicode
 from scrapy.item import BaseItem
 
 
-_ITERABLE_SINGLE_VALUES = dict, BaseItem, six.text_type, bytes
+_ITERABLE_SINGLE_VALUES = dict, BaseItem, str, bytes
 
 
 def arg_to_iter(arg):
@@ -83,7 +82,7 @@ def extract_regex(regex, text, encoding='utf-8'):
     * if the regex doesn't contain any group the entire regex matching is returned
     """
 
-    if isinstance(regex, six.string_types):
+    if isinstance(regex, str):
         regex = re.compile(regex, re.UNICODE)
 
     try:
@@ -92,7 +91,7 @@ def extract_regex(regex, text, encoding='utf-8'):
         strings = regex.findall(text)    # full regex or numbered groups
     strings = flatten(strings)
 
-    if isinstance(text, six.text_type):
+    if isinstance(text, str):
         return [replace_entities(s, keep=['lt', 'amp']) for s in strings]
     else:
         return [replace_entities(to_unicode(s, encoding), keep=['lt', 'amp'])
diff --git a/scrapy/utils/ossignal.py b/scrapy/utils/ossignal.py
index f87d5a803..7a7aec9be 100644
--- a/scrapy/utils/ossignal.py
+++ b/scrapy/utils/ossignal.py
@@ -1,5 +1,3 @@
-
-from __future__ import absolute_import
 import signal
 
 from twisted.internet import reactor
diff --git a/scrapy/utils/project.py b/scrapy/utils/project.py
index 1cbda141a..f28c2eaa1 100644
--- a/scrapy/utils/project.py
+++ b/scrapy/utils/project.py
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 import os
-from six.moves import cPickle as pickle
+import pickle
 import warnings
 
 from importlib import import_module
@@ -7,8 +7,8 @@ from os.path import join, dirname, abspath, isabs, exists
 
 from scrapy.utils.conf import closest_scrapy_cfg, get_config, init_env
 from scrapy.settings import Settings
-from scrapy.exceptions import NotConfigured
-from scrapy.exceptions import ScrapyDeprecationWarning
+from scrapy.exceptions import NotConfigured, ScrapyDeprecationWarning
+
 
 ENVVAR = 'SCRAPY_SETTINGS_MODULE'
 DATADIR_CFG_SECTION = 'datadir'
diff --git a/scrapy/utils/python.py b/scrapy/utils/python.py
index 138e86d37..8d829c5a5 100644
--- a/scrapy/utils/python.py
+++ b/scrapy/utils/python.py
@@ -7,7 +7,6 @@ import re
 import inspect
 import weakref
 import errno
-import six
 from functools import partial, wraps
 from itertools import chain
 import sys
@@ -65,10 +64,10 @@ def is_listlike(x):
     True
     >>> is_listlike((x for x in range(3)))
     True
-    >>> is_listlike(six.moves.xrange(5))
+    >>> is_listlike(range(5))
     True
     """
-    return hasattr(x, "__iter__") and not isinstance(x, (six.text_type, bytes))
+    return hasattr(x, "__iter__") and not isinstance(x, (str, bytes))
 
 
 def unique(list_, key=lambda x: x):
@@ -87,9 +86,9 @@ def unique(list_, key=lambda x: x):
 def to_unicode(text, encoding=None, errors='strict'):
     """Return the unicode representation of a bytes object ``text``. If
     ``text`` is already an unicode object, return it as-is."""
-    if isinstance(text, six.text_type):
+    if isinstance(text, str):
         return text
-    if not isinstance(text, (bytes, six.text_type)):
+    if not isinstance(text, (bytes, str)):
         raise TypeError('to_unicode must receive a bytes or str '
                         'object, got %s' % type(text).__name__)
     if encoding is None:
@@ -102,7 +101,7 @@ def to_bytes(text, encoding=None, errors='strict'):
     is already a bytes object, return it as-is."""
     if isinstance(text, bytes):
         return text
-    if not isinstance(text, six.string_types):
+    if not isinstance(text, str):
         raise TypeError('to_bytes must receive a str or bytes '
                         'object, got %s' % type(text).__name__)
     if encoding is None:
@@ -138,7 +137,7 @@ def re_rsearch(pattern, text, chunk_size=1024):
             yield (text[offset:], offset)
         yield (text, 0)
 
-    if isinstance(pattern, six.string_types):
+    if isinstance(pattern, str):
         pattern = re.compile(pattern)
 
     for chunk, offset in _chunk_iter():
@@ -162,7 +161,7 @@ def memoizemethod_noargs(method):
     return new_method
 
 
-_BINARYCHARS = {six.b(chr(i)) for i in range(32)} - {b"\0", b"\t", b"\n", b"\r"}
+_BINARYCHARS = {to_bytes(chr(i)) for i in range(32)} - {b"\0", b"\t", b"\n", b"\r"}
 _BINARYCHARS |= {ord(ch) for ch in _BINARYCHARS}
 
 
@@ -301,10 +300,10 @@ def stringify_dict(dct_or_tuples, encoding='utf-8', keys_only=True):
     dict or a list of tuples, like any dict ``__init__`` method supports.
     """
     d = {}
-    for k, v in six.iteritems(dict(dct_or_tuples)):
-        k = k.encode(encoding) if isinstance(k, six.text_type) else k
+    for k, v in dict(dct_or_tuples).items():
+        k = k.encode(encoding) if isinstance(k, str) else k
         if not keys_only:
-            v = v.encode(encoding) if isinstance(v, six.text_type) else v
+            v = v.encode(encoding) if isinstance(v, str) else v
         d[k] = v
     return d
 
@@ -346,7 +345,7 @@ def without_none_values(iterable):
     value ``None`` have been removed.
     """
     try:
-        return {k: v for k, v in six.iteritems(iterable) if v is not None}
+        return {k: v for k, v in iterable.items() if v is not None}
     except AttributeError:
         return type(iterable)((v for v in iterable if v is not None))
 
diff --git a/scrapy/utils/reqser.py b/scrapy/utils/reqser.py
index 495564ac0..749bbc387 100644
--- a/scrapy/utils/reqser.py
+++ b/scrapy/utils/reqser.py
@@ -1,8 +1,6 @@
 """
 Helper functions for serializing (and deserializing) requests.
 """
-import six
-
 from scrapy.http import Request
 from scrapy.utils.python import to_unicode
 from scrapy.utils.misc import load_object
@@ -87,12 +85,12 @@ def _mangle_private_name(obj, func, name):
 def _find_method(obj, func):
     if obj:
         try:
-            func_self = six.get_method_self(func)
+            func_self = func.__self__
         except AttributeError:  # func has no __self__
             pass
         else:
             if func_self is obj:
-                name = six.get_method_function(func).__name__
+                name = func.__func__.__name__
                 if _is_private_method(name):
                     return _mangle_private_name(obj, func, name)
                 return name
diff --git a/scrapy/utils/request.py b/scrapy/utils/request.py
index 0fce5a2e1..356753ab5 100644
--- a/scrapy/utils/request.py
+++ b/scrapy/utils/request.py
@@ -3,16 +3,15 @@ This module provides some useful functions for working with
 scrapy.http.Request objects
 """
 
-from __future__ import print_function
 import hashlib
 import weakref
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urlunparse
+from urllib.parse import urlunparse
 
 from w3lib.http import basic_auth_header
-from scrapy.utils.python import to_bytes, to_unicode
-
 from w3lib.url import canonicalize_url
+
 from scrapy.utils.httpobj import urlparse_cached
+from scrapy.utils.python import to_bytes, to_unicode
 
 
 _fingerprint_cache = weakref.WeakKeyDictionary()
diff --git a/scrapy/utils/sitemap.py b/scrapy/utils/sitemap.py
index 4742b3e13..2f10cf4de 100644
--- a/scrapy/utils/sitemap.py
+++ b/scrapy/utils/sitemap.py
@@ -5,8 +5,9 @@ Note: The main purpose of this module is to provide support for the
 SitemapSpider, its API is subject to change without notice.
 """
 
+from urllib.parse import urljoin
+
 import lxml.etree
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urljoin
 
 
 class Sitemap(object):
diff --git a/scrapy/utils/spider.py b/scrapy/utils/spider.py
index bf4973fbf..4061d1ea3 100644
--- a/scrapy/utils/spider.py
+++ b/scrapy/utils/spider.py
@@ -1,11 +1,10 @@
 import logging
 import inspect
 
-import six
-
 from scrapy.spiders import Spider
 from scrapy.utils.misc import  arg_to_iter
 
+
 logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
 
 
@@ -21,7 +20,7 @@ def iter_spider_classes(module):
     # singleton in scrapy.spider.spiders
     from scrapy.spiders import Spider
 
-    for obj in six.itervalues(vars(module)):
+    for obj in vars(module).values():
         if inspect.isclass(obj) and \
            issubclass(obj, Spider) and \
            obj.__module__ == module.__name__ and \
diff --git a/scrapy/utils/test.py b/scrapy/utils/test.py
index 9754366df..307c25352 100644
--- a/scrapy/utils/test.py
+++ b/scrapy/utils/test.py
@@ -2,7 +2,6 @@
 This module contains some assorted functions used in tests
 """
 
-from __future__ import absolute_import
 import os
 
 from importlib import import_module
diff --git a/scrapy/utils/testproc.py b/scrapy/utils/testproc.py
index f268e91ff..0f15cf60a 100644
--- a/scrapy/utils/testproc.py
+++ b/scrapy/utils/testproc.py
@@ -1,4 +1,3 @@
-from __future__ import absolute_import
 import sys
 import os
 
diff --git a/scrapy/utils/testsite.py b/scrapy/utils/testsite.py
index e50a989b3..6f5c21624 100644
--- a/scrapy/utils/testsite.py
+++ b/scrapy/utils/testsite.py
@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@
-from __future__ import print_function
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urljoin
+from urllib.parse import urljoin
 
 from twisted.internet import reactor
 from twisted.web import server, resource, static, util
diff --git a/scrapy/utils/trackref.py b/scrapy/utils/trackref.py
index eed14c5a1..4842b95df 100644
--- a/scrapy/utils/trackref.py
+++ b/scrapy/utils/trackref.py
@@ -9,12 +9,10 @@ and no performance penalty at all when disabled (as object_ref becomes just an
 alias to object in that case).
 """
 
-from __future__ import print_function
 import weakref
 from time import time
 from operator import itemgetter
 from collections import defaultdict
-import six
 
 
 NoneType = type(None)
@@ -37,13 +35,13 @@ def format_live_refs(ignore=NoneType):
     """Return a tabular representation of tracked objects"""
     s = "Live References\n\n"
     now = time()
-    for cls, wdict in sorted(six.iteritems(live_refs),
+    for cls, wdict in sorted(live_refs.items(),
                              key=lambda x: x[0].__name__):
         if not wdict:
             continue
         if issubclass(cls, ignore):
             continue
-        oldest = min(six.itervalues(wdict))
+        oldest = min(wdict.values())
         s += "%-30s %6d   oldest: %ds ago\n" % (
             cls.__name__, len(wdict), now - oldest
         )
@@ -57,15 +55,15 @@ def print_live_refs(*a, **kw):
 
 def get_oldest(class_name):
     """Get the oldest object for a specific class name"""
-    for cls, wdict in six.iteritems(live_refs):
+    for cls, wdict in live_refs.items():
         if cls.__name__ == class_name:
             if not wdict:
                 break
-            return min(six.iteritems(wdict), key=itemgetter(1))[0]
+            return min(wdict.items(), key=itemgetter(1))[0]
 
 
 def iter_all(class_name):
     """Iterate over all objects of the same class by its class name"""
-    for cls, wdict in six.iteritems(live_refs):
+    for cls, wdict in live_refs.items():
         if cls.__name__ == class_name:
-            return six.iterkeys(wdict)
+            return wdict.keys()
diff --git a/scrapy/utils/url.py b/scrapy/utils/url.py
index 2c7b324a1..c9abb12d5 100644
--- a/scrapy/utils/url.py
+++ b/scrapy/utils/url.py
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ to the w3lib.url module. Always import those from there instead.
 """
 import posixpath
 import re
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import (ParseResult, urldefrag, urlparse, urlunparse)
+from urllib.parse import ParseResult, urldefrag, urlparse, urlunparse
 
 # scrapy.utils.url was moved to w3lib.url and import * ensures this
 # move doesn't break old code
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 8f5f14f0d..85d797f88 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -72,7 +72,6 @@ setup(
         'pyOpenSSL>=16.2.0',
         'queuelib>=1.4.2',
         'service_identity>=16.0.0',
-        'six>=1.10.0',
         'w3lib>=1.17.0',
         'zope.interface>=4.1.3',
         'protego>=0.1.15',
diff --git a/tests/mockserver.py b/tests/mockserver.py
index 7ebb8bb62..fe28176d4 100644
--- a/tests/mockserver.py
+++ b/tests/mockserver.py
@@ -3,9 +3,9 @@ import os
 import random
 import sys
 from subprocess import Popen, PIPE
+from urllib.parse import urlencode
 
 from OpenSSL import SSL
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urlencode
 from twisted.web.server import Site, NOT_DONE_YET
 from twisted.web.resource import Resource
 from twisted.web.static import File
diff --git a/tests/requirements-py3.txt b/tests/requirements-py3.txt
index c4bc1f278..e9bf310b9 100644
--- a/tests/requirements-py3.txt
+++ b/tests/requirements-py3.txt
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 # Tests requirements
 jmespath
 mitmproxy; python_version >= '3.6'
-mitmproxy==3.0.4; python_version < '3.6'
+mitmproxy<4.0.0; python_version < '3.6'
 pytest
 pytest-cov
 pytest-twisted
diff --git a/tests/spiders.py b/tests/spiders.py
index 2487ecc22..981bd2eb8 100644
--- a/tests/spiders.py
+++ b/tests/spiders.py
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ Some spiders used for testing and benchmarking
 """
 
 import time
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urlencode
+from urllib.parse import urlencode
 
 from scrapy.spiders import Spider
 from scrapy.http import Request
diff --git a/tests/test_cmdline/__init__.py b/tests/test_cmdline/__init__.py
index 56cfe642a..909ea90e0 100644
--- a/tests/test_cmdline/__init__.py
+++ b/tests/test_cmdline/__init__.py
@@ -1,13 +1,12 @@
-from io import StringIO
 import json
 import os
 import pstats
 import shutil
-import six
-from subprocess import Popen, PIPE
 import sys
 import tempfile
 import unittest
+from io import StringIO
+from subprocess import Popen, PIPE
 
 from scrapy.utils.test import get_testenv
 
@@ -65,5 +64,5 @@ class CmdlineTest(unittest.TestCase):
         for char in ("'", "<", ">", 'u"'):
             settingsstr = settingsstr.replace(char, '"')
         settingsdict = json.loads(settingsstr)
-        six.assertCountEqual(self, settingsdict.keys(), EXTENSIONS.keys())
+        self.assertCountEqual(settingsdict.keys(), EXTENSIONS.keys())
         self.assertEqual(200, settingsdict[EXT_PATH])
diff --git a/tests/test_contracts.py b/tests/test_contracts.py
index b2e358700..582e3d052 100644
--- a/tests/test_contracts.py
+++ b/tests/test_contracts.py
@@ -1,6 +1,5 @@
 from unittest import TextTestResult
 
-from six import get_unbound_function
 from twisted.internet import defer
 from twisted.python import failure
 from twisted.trial import unittest
@@ -395,8 +394,8 @@ class ContractsManagerTest(unittest.TestCase):
         with MockServer() as mockserver:
             contract_doc = '@url {}'.format(mockserver.url('/status?n=200'))
 
-            get_unbound_function(TestSameUrlSpider.parse_first).__doc__ = contract_doc
-            get_unbound_function(TestSameUrlSpider.parse_second).__doc__ = contract_doc
+            TestSameUrlSpider.parse_first.__doc__ = contract_doc
+            TestSameUrlSpider.parse_second.__doc__ = contract_doc
 
             crawler = CrawlerRunner().create_crawler(TestSameUrlSpider)
             yield crawler.crawl()
diff --git a/tests/test_crawl.py b/tests/test_crawl.py
index 3fc13eeb7..3307899b7 100644
--- a/tests/test_crawl.py
+++ b/tests/test_crawl.py
@@ -140,7 +140,7 @@ class CrawlTestCase(TestCase):
     def test_unbounded_response(self):
         # Completeness of responses without Content-Length or Transfer-Encoding
         # can not be determined, we treat them as valid but flagged as "partial"
-        from six.moves.urllib.parse import urlencode
+        from urllib.parse import urlencode
         query = urlencode({'raw': '''\
 HTTP/1.1 200 OK
 Server: Apache-Coyote/1.1
diff --git a/tests/test_downloadermiddleware_robotstxt.py b/tests/test_downloadermiddleware_robotstxt.py
index 8266bf35f..a1645ed96 100644
--- a/tests/test_downloadermiddleware_robotstxt.py
+++ b/tests/test_downloadermiddleware_robotstxt.py
@@ -1,6 +1,4 @@
 # -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
-from __future__ import absolute_import
-
 from unittest import mock
 
 from twisted.internet import reactor, error
diff --git a/tests/test_engine.py b/tests/test_engine.py
index 30150391a..002c4e6bb 100644
--- a/tests/test_engine.py
+++ b/tests/test_engine.py
@@ -10,9 +10,10 @@ module with the ``runserver`` argument::
     python test_engine.py runserver
 """
 
-from __future__ import print_function
-import sys, os, re
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urlparse
+import os
+import re
+import sys
+from urllib.parse import urlparse
 
 from twisted.internet import reactor, defer
 from twisted.web import server, static, util
diff --git a/tests/test_exporters.py b/tests/test_exporters.py
index 0046c5666..5d1f5c182 100644
--- a/tests/test_exporters.py
+++ b/tests/test_exporters.py
@@ -1,15 +1,13 @@
-from __future__ import absolute_import
 import re
 import json
 import marshal
+import pickle
 import tempfile
 import unittest
 from io import BytesIO
 from datetime import datetime
-from six.moves import cPickle as pickle
 
 import lxml.etree
-import six
 
 from scrapy.item import Item, Field
 from scrapy.utils.python import to_unicode
@@ -80,7 +78,7 @@ class BaseItemExporterTest(unittest.TestCase):
 
         ie = self._get_exporter(fields_to_export=['name'], encoding='latin-1')
         _, name = list(ie._get_serialized_fields(self.i))[0]
-        assert isinstance(name, six.text_type)
+        assert isinstance(name, str)
         self.assertEqual(name, u'John\xa3')
 
     def test_field_custom_serializer(self):
diff --git a/tests/test_feedexport.py b/tests/test_feedexport.py
index ce3c4f059..2ca57c19d 100644
--- a/tests/test_feedexport.py
+++ b/tests/test_feedexport.py
@@ -1,15 +1,15 @@
-from __future__ import absolute_import
 import os
 import csv
 import json
 import warnings
-from io import BytesIO
 import tempfile
 import shutil
 import string
+from io import BytesIO
+from pathlib import Path
 from unittest import mock
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urljoin, urlparse, quote
-from six.moves.urllib.request import pathname2url
+from urllib.parse import urljoin, urlparse, quote
+from urllib.request import pathname2url
 
 from zope.interface.verify import verifyObject
 from twisted.trial import unittest
@@ -28,8 +28,6 @@ from scrapy.extensions.feedexport import (
 from scrapy.utils.test import assert_aws_environ, get_s3_content_and_delete, get_crawler
 from scrapy.utils.python import to_unicode
 
-from pathlib import Path
-
 
 class FileFeedStorageTest(unittest.TestCase):
 
diff --git a/tests/test_http_cookies.py b/tests/test_http_cookies.py
index 0a9ed500a..45ddb42ba 100644
--- a/tests/test_http_cookies.py
+++ b/tests/test_http_cookies.py
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urlparse
+from urllib.parse import urlparse
 from unittest import TestCase
 
 from scrapy.http import Request, Response
diff --git a/tests/test_http_headers.py b/tests/test_http_headers.py
index c83cf3b66..cf3fc8496 100644
--- a/tests/test_http_headers.py
+++ b/tests/test_http_headers.py
@@ -86,9 +86,6 @@ class HeadersTest(unittest.TestCase):
         self.assertSortedEqual(h.items(),
                                [(b'X-Forwarded-For', [b'ip1', b'ip2']),
                                 (b'Content-Type', [b'text/html'])])
-        self.assertSortedEqual(h.iteritems(),
-                               [(b'X-Forwarded-For', [b'ip1', b'ip2']),
-                                (b'Content-Type', [b'text/html'])])
         self.assertSortedEqual(h.values(), [b'ip2', b'text/html'])
 
     def test_update(self):
diff --git a/tests/test_http_request.py b/tests/test_http_request.py
index 9df6ff67b..a98aa1e6f 100644
--- a/tests/test_http_request.py
+++ b/tests/test_http_request.py
@@ -1,12 +1,10 @@
 import unittest
 import re
 import json
-from unittest import mock
-from urllib.parse import unquote_to_bytes
+import xmlrpc.client
 import warnings
-
-from six.moves import xmlrpc_client as xmlrpclib
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urlparse, parse_qs
+from unittest import mock
+from urllib.parse import parse_qs, unquote_to_bytes, urlparse
 
 from scrapy.http import Request, FormRequest, XmlRpcRequest, JsonRequest, Headers, HtmlResponse
 from scrapy.utils.python import to_bytes, to_unicode
@@ -64,7 +62,7 @@ class RequestTest(unittest.TestCase):
         # headers must not be unicode
         h = Headers({'key1': u'val1', u'key2': 'val2'})
         h[u'newkey'] = u'newval'
-        for k, v in h.iteritems():
+        for k, v in h.items():
             self.assertIsInstance(k, bytes)
             for s in v:
                 self.assertIsInstance(s, bytes)
@@ -1220,7 +1218,7 @@ class XmlRpcRequestTest(RequestTest):
         r = self.request_class('http://scrapytest.org/rpc2', **kwargs)
         self.assertEqual(r.headers[b'Content-Type'], b'text/xml')
         self.assertEqual(r.body,
-                         to_bytes(xmlrpclib.dumps(**kwargs),
+                         to_bytes(xmlrpc.client.dumps(**kwargs),
                                   encoding=kwargs.get('encoding', 'utf-8')))
         self.assertEqual(r.method, 'POST')
         self.assertEqual(r.encoding, kwargs.get('encoding', 'utf-8'))
diff --git a/tests/test_http_response.py b/tests/test_http_response.py
index ce13650ce..29d82974c 100644
--- a/tests/test_http_response.py
+++ b/tests/test_http_response.py
@@ -1,7 +1,6 @@
 # -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
 import unittest
 
-import six
 from w3lib.encoding import resolve_encoding
 
 from scrapy.http import (Request, Response, TextResponse, HtmlResponse,
@@ -102,7 +101,7 @@ class BaseResponseTest(unittest.TestCase):
         self.assertEqual(r4.flags, [])
 
     def _assert_response_values(self, response, encoding, body):
-        if isinstance(body, six.text_type):
+        if isinstance(body, str):
             body_unicode = body
             body_bytes = body.encode(encoding)
         else:
@@ -110,7 +109,7 @@ class BaseResponseTest(unittest.TestCase):
             body_bytes = body
 
         assert isinstance(response.body, bytes)
-        assert isinstance(response.text, six.text_type)
+        assert isinstance(response.text, str)
         self._assert_response_encoding(response, encoding)
         self.assertEqual(response.body, body_bytes)
         self.assertEqual(response.body_as_unicode(), body_unicode)
@@ -301,11 +300,11 @@ class TextResponseTest(BaseResponseTest):
         r1 = self.response_class('http://www.example.com', body=original_string, encoding='cp1251')
 
         # check body_as_unicode
-        self.assertTrue(isinstance(r1.body_as_unicode(), six.text_type))
+        self.assertTrue(isinstance(r1.body_as_unicode(), str))
         self.assertEqual(r1.body_as_unicode(), unicode_string)
 
         # check response.text
-        self.assertTrue(isinstance(r1.text, six.text_type))
+        self.assertTrue(isinstance(r1.text, str))
         self.assertEqual(r1.text, unicode_string)
 
     def test_encoding(self):
diff --git a/tests/test_item.py b/tests/test_item.py
index 49117ef04..30463a0f5 100644
--- a/tests/test_item.py
+++ b/tests/test_item.py
@@ -3,8 +3,6 @@ import unittest
 from unittest import mock
 from warnings import catch_warnings
 
-import six
-
 from scrapy.exceptions import ScrapyDeprecationWarning
 from scrapy.item import ABCMeta, DictItem, Field, Item, ItemMeta
 
@@ -302,7 +300,7 @@ class ItemMetaTest(unittest.TestCase):
 class ItemMetaClassCellRegression(unittest.TestCase):
 
     def test_item_meta_classcell_regression(self):
-        class MyItem(six.with_metaclass(ItemMeta, Item)):
+        class MyItem(Item, metaclass=ItemMeta):
             def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
                 # This call to super() trigger the __classcell__ propagation
                 # requirement. When not done properly raises an error:
diff --git a/tests/test_loader.py b/tests/test_loader.py
index b87602809..579a85ff6 100644
--- a/tests/test_loader.py
+++ b/tests/test_loader.py
@@ -1,8 +1,6 @@
 from functools import partial
 import unittest
 
-import six
-
 from scrapy.http import HtmlResponse
 from scrapy.item import Item, Field
 from scrapy.loader import ItemLoader
@@ -157,7 +155,7 @@ class BasicItemLoaderTest(unittest.TestCase):
 
     def test_get_value(self):
         il = NameItemLoader()
-        self.assertEqual(u'FOO', il.get_value([u'foo', u'bar'], TakeFirst(), six.text_type.upper))
+        self.assertEqual(u'FOO', il.get_value([u'foo', u'bar'], TakeFirst(), str.upper))
         self.assertEqual([u'foo', u'bar'], il.get_value([u'name:foo', u'name:bar'], re=u'name:(.*)$'))
         self.assertEqual(u'foo', il.get_value([u'name:foo', u'name:bar'], TakeFirst(), re=u'name:(.*)$'))
 
@@ -258,7 +256,7 @@ class BasicItemLoaderTest(unittest.TestCase):
 
     def test_extend_custom_input_processors(self):
         class ChildItemLoader(TestItemLoader):
-            name_in = MapCompose(TestItemLoader.name_in, six.text_type.swapcase)
+            name_in = MapCompose(TestItemLoader.name_in, str.swapcase)
 
         il = ChildItemLoader()
         il.add_value('name', u'marta')
@@ -266,7 +264,7 @@ class BasicItemLoaderTest(unittest.TestCase):
 
     def test_extend_default_input_processors(self):
         class ChildDefaultedItemLoader(DefaultedItemLoader):
-            name_in = MapCompose(DefaultedItemLoader.default_input_processor, six.text_type.swapcase)
+            name_in = MapCompose(DefaultedItemLoader.default_input_processor, str.swapcase)
 
         il = ChildDefaultedItemLoader()
         il.add_value('name', u'marta')
@@ -689,7 +687,7 @@ class ProcessorsTest(unittest.TestCase):
         self.assertRaises(TypeError, proc, [None, '', 'hello', 'world'])
         self.assertEqual(proc(['', 'hello', 'world']), u' hello world')
         self.assertEqual(proc(['hello', 'world']), u'hello world')
-        self.assertIsInstance(proc(['hello', 'world']), six.text_type)
+        self.assertIsInstance(proc(['hello', 'world']), str)
 
     def test_compose(self):
         proc = Compose(lambda v: v[0], str.upper)
@@ -704,12 +702,12 @@ class ProcessorsTest(unittest.TestCase):
     def test_mapcompose(self):
         def filter_world(x):
             return None if x == 'world' else x
-        proc = MapCompose(filter_world, six.text_type.upper)
+        proc = MapCompose(filter_world, str.upper)
         self.assertEqual(proc([u'hello', u'world', u'this', u'is', u'scrapy']),
                          [u'HELLO', u'THIS', u'IS', u'SCRAPY'])
-        proc = MapCompose(filter_world, six.text_type.upper)
+        proc = MapCompose(filter_world, str.upper)
         self.assertEqual(proc(None), [])
-        proc = MapCompose(filter_world, six.text_type.upper)
+        proc = MapCompose(filter_world, str.upper)
         self.assertRaises(ValueError, proc, [1])
         proc = MapCompose(filter_world, lambda x: x + 1)
         self.assertRaises(ValueError, proc, 'hello')
@@ -994,5 +992,53 @@ class SelectJmesTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
             )
 
 
+# Functions as processors
+
+def function_processor_strip(iterable):
+    return [x.strip() for x in iterable]
+
+
+def function_processor_upper(iterable):
+    return [x.upper() for x in iterable]
+
+
+class FunctionProcessorItem(Item):
+    foo = Field(
+        input_processor=function_processor_strip,
+        output_processor=function_processor_upper,
+    )
+
+
+class FunctionProcessorItemLoader(ItemLoader):
+    default_item_class = FunctionProcessorItem
+
+
+class FunctionProcessorDictLoader(ItemLoader):
+    default_item_class = dict
+    foo_in = function_processor_strip
+    foo_out = function_processor_upper
+
+
+class FunctionProcessorTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
+
+    def test_processor_defined_in_item(self):
+        lo = FunctionProcessorItemLoader()
+        lo.add_value('foo', '  bar  ')
+        lo.add_value('foo', ['  asdf  ', '  qwerty  '])
+        self.assertEqual(
+            dict(lo.load_item()),
+            {'foo': ['BAR', 'ASDF', 'QWERTY']}
+        )
+
+    def test_processor_defined_in_item_loader(self):
+        lo = FunctionProcessorDictLoader()
+        lo.add_value('foo', '  bar  ')
+        lo.add_value('foo', ['  asdf  ', '  qwerty  '])
+        self.assertEqual(
+            dict(lo.load_item()),
+            {'foo': ['BAR', 'ASDF', 'QWERTY']}
+        )
+
+
 if __name__ == "__main__":
     unittest.main()
diff --git a/tests/test_logformatter.py b/tests/test_logformatter.py
index d0b23a8c4..7d8c6ec7f 100644
--- a/tests/test_logformatter.py
+++ b/tests/test_logformatter.py
@@ -3,7 +3,6 @@ import unittest
 from testfixtures import LogCapture
 from twisted.internet import defer
 from twisted.trial.unittest import TestCase as TwistedTestCase
-import six
 
 from scrapy.crawler import CrawlerRunner
 from scrapy.exceptions import DropItem
@@ -60,7 +59,7 @@ class LogFormatterTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
         logkws = self.formatter.dropped(item, exception, response, self.spider)
         logline = logkws['msg'] % logkws['args']
         lines = logline.splitlines()
-        assert all(isinstance(x, six.text_type) for x in lines)
+        assert all(isinstance(x, str) for x in lines)
         self.assertEqual(lines, [u"Dropped: \u2018", '{}'])
 
     def test_error(self):
@@ -80,7 +79,7 @@ class LogFormatterTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
         logkws = self.formatter.scraped(item, response, self.spider)
         logline = logkws['msg'] % logkws['args']
         lines = logline.splitlines()
-        assert all(isinstance(x, six.text_type) for x in lines)
+        assert all(isinstance(x, str) for x in lines)
         self.assertEqual(lines, [u"Scraped from <200 http://www.example.com>", u'name: \xa3'])
 
 
diff --git a/tests/test_pipeline_files.py b/tests/test_pipeline_files.py
index bd40e4103..52f2b554e 100644
--- a/tests/test_pipeline_files.py
+++ b/tests/test_pipeline_files.py
@@ -1,11 +1,11 @@
 import os
 import random
 import time
+from io import BytesIO
 from tempfile import mkdtemp
 from shutil import rmtree
 from unittest import mock
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urlparse
-from six import BytesIO
+from urllib.parse import urlparse
 
 from twisted.trial import unittest
 from twisted.internet import defer
diff --git a/tests/test_pipeline_media.py b/tests/test_pipeline_media.py
index ad958e25f..0d23f51cc 100644
--- a/tests/test_pipeline_media.py
+++ b/tests/test_pipeline_media.py
@@ -1,5 +1,3 @@
-from __future__ import print_function
-
 from testfixtures import LogCapture
 from twisted.trial import unittest
 from twisted.python.failure import Failure
diff --git a/tests/test_proxy_connect.py b/tests/test_proxy_connect.py
index 277455751..5f68cd448 100644
--- a/tests/test_proxy_connect.py
+++ b/tests/test_proxy_connect.py
@@ -1,20 +1,20 @@
 import json
 import os
 import re
-from subprocess import Popen, PIPE
 import sys
+from subprocess import Popen, PIPE
+from urllib.parse import urlsplit, urlunsplit
 
 import pytest
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urlsplit, urlunsplit
 from testfixtures import LogCapture
-
 from twisted.internet import defer
 from twisted.trial.unittest import TestCase
 
-from scrapy.utils.test import get_crawler
 from scrapy.http import Request
-from tests.spiders import SimpleSpider, SingleRequestSpider
+from scrapy.utils.test import get_crawler
+
 from tests.mockserver import MockServer
+from tests.spiders import SimpleSpider, SingleRequestSpider
 
 
 class MitmProxy:
diff --git a/tests/test_settings/__init__.py b/tests/test_settings/__init__.py
index 32e65bed5..fda44653a 100644
--- a/tests/test_settings/__init__.py
+++ b/tests/test_settings/__init__.py
@@ -1,4 +1,3 @@
-import six
 import unittest
 from unittest import mock
 
@@ -10,7 +9,7 @@ from . import default_settings
 class SettingsGlobalFuncsTest(unittest.TestCase):
 
     def test_get_settings_priority(self):
-        for prio_str, prio_num in six.iteritems(SETTINGS_PRIORITIES):
+        for prio_str, prio_num in SETTINGS_PRIORITIES.items():
             self.assertEqual(get_settings_priority(prio_str), prio_num)
         self.assertEqual(get_settings_priority(99), 99)
 
@@ -43,14 +42,14 @@ class SettingsAttributeTest(unittest.TestCase):
         new_dict = {'three': 11, 'four': 21}
         attribute.set(new_dict, 10)
         self.assertIsInstance(attribute.value, BaseSettings)
-        six.assertCountEqual(self, attribute.value, new_dict)
-        six.assertCountEqual(self, original_settings, original_dict)
+        self.assertCountEqual(attribute.value, new_dict)
+        self.assertCountEqual(original_settings, original_dict)
 
         new_settings = BaseSettings({'five': 12}, 0)
         attribute.set(new_settings, 0)  # Insufficient priority
-        six.assertCountEqual(self, attribute.value, new_dict)
+        self.assertCountEqual(attribute.value, new_dict)
         attribute.set(new_settings, 10)
-        six.assertCountEqual(self, attribute.value, new_settings)
+        self.assertCountEqual(attribute.value, new_settings)
 
     def test_repr(self):
         self.assertEqual(repr(self.attribute),
@@ -148,10 +147,10 @@ class BaseSettingsTest(unittest.TestCase):
         self.settings.setmodule(
             'tests.test_settings.default_settings', 10)
 
-        self.assertCountEqual(six.iterkeys(self.settings.attributes),
-                              six.iterkeys(ctrl_attributes))
+        self.assertCountEqual(self.settings.attributes.keys(),
+                              ctrl_attributes.keys())
 
-        for key in six.iterkeys(ctrl_attributes):
+        for key in ctrl_attributes.keys():
             attr = self.settings.attributes[key]
             ctrl_attr = ctrl_attributes[key]
             self.assertEqual(attr.value, ctrl_attr.value)
@@ -227,7 +226,7 @@ class BaseSettingsTest(unittest.TestCase):
         }
         settings = self.settings
         settings.attributes = {key: SettingsAttribute(value, 0) for key, value
-                               in six.iteritems(test_configuration)}
+                               in test_configuration.items()}
 
         self.assertTrue(settings.getbool('TEST_ENABLED1'))
         self.assertTrue(settings.getbool('TEST_ENABLED2'))
@@ -276,9 +275,8 @@ class BaseSettingsTest(unittest.TestCase):
                           'TEST': BaseSettings({1: 10, 3: 30}, 'default'),
                           'HASNOBASE': BaseSettings({3: 3000}, 'default')})
         s['TEST'].set(2, 200, 'cmdline')
-        six.assertCountEqual(self, s.getwithbase('TEST'),
-                             {1: 1, 2: 200, 3: 30})
-        six.assertCountEqual(self, s.getwithbase('HASNOBASE'), s['HASNOBASE'])
+        self.assertCountEqual(s.getwithbase('TEST'), {1: 1, 2: 200, 3: 30})
+        self.assertCountEqual(s.getwithbase('HASNOBASE'), s['HASNOBASE'])
         self.assertEqual(s.getwithbase('NONEXISTENT'), {})
 
     def test_maxpriority(self):
diff --git a/tests/test_spider.py b/tests/test_spider.py
index aa43e3b3a..317a27076 100644
--- a/tests/test_spider.py
+++ b/tests/test_spider.py
@@ -384,6 +384,14 @@ class CrawlSpiderTest(SpiderTest):
         self.assertTrue(hasattr(spider, '_follow_links'))
         self.assertFalse(spider._follow_links)
 
+    def test_start_url(self):
+        spider = self.spider_class("example.com")
+        spider.start_url = 'https://www.example.com'
+
+        with self.assertRaisesRegex(AttributeError,
+                                    r'^Crawling could not start.*$'):
+            list(spider.start_requests())
+
 
 class SitemapSpiderTest(SpiderTest):
 
diff --git a/tests/test_spidermiddleware_offsite.py b/tests/test_spidermiddleware_offsite.py
index b97d9b675..992e60be2 100644
--- a/tests/test_spidermiddleware_offsite.py
+++ b/tests/test_spidermiddleware_offsite.py
@@ -1,13 +1,11 @@
 from unittest import TestCase
-
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urlparse
+from urllib.parse import urlparse
+import warnings
 
 from scrapy.http import Response, Request
 from scrapy.spiders import Spider
-from scrapy.spidermiddlewares.offsite import OffsiteMiddleware
-from scrapy.spidermiddlewares.offsite import URLWarning
+from scrapy.spidermiddlewares.offsite import OffsiteMiddleware, URLWarning
 from scrapy.utils.test import get_crawler
-import warnings
 
 
 class TestOffsiteMiddleware(TestCase):
diff --git a/tests/test_spidermiddleware_referer.py b/tests/test_spidermiddleware_referer.py
index 2be6a1cd5..ecec6135d 100644
--- a/tests/test_spidermiddleware_referer.py
+++ b/tests/test_spidermiddleware_referer.py
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urlparse
+from urllib.parse import urlparse
 from unittest import TestCase
 import warnings
 
diff --git a/tests/test_toplevel.py b/tests/test_toplevel.py
index 91bbe43bc..fdc5df166 100644
--- a/tests/test_toplevel.py
+++ b/tests/test_toplevel.py
@@ -1,12 +1,12 @@
 from unittest import TestCase
-import six
+
 import scrapy
 
 
 class ToplevelTestCase(TestCase):
 
     def test_version(self):
-        self.assertIs(type(scrapy.__version__), six.text_type)
+        self.assertIs(type(scrapy.__version__), str)
 
     def test_version_info(self):
         self.assertIs(type(scrapy.version_info), tuple)
diff --git a/tests/test_urlparse_monkeypatches.py b/tests/test_urlparse_monkeypatches.py
index 22e39821c..bea0cf3e5 100644
--- a/tests/test_urlparse_monkeypatches.py
+++ b/tests/test_urlparse_monkeypatches.py
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urlparse
+from urllib.parse import urlparse
 import unittest
 
 
diff --git a/tests/test_utils_curl.py b/tests/test_utils_curl.py
index c5655df7e..50e1bfd5f 100644
--- a/tests/test_utils_curl.py
+++ b/tests/test_utils_curl.py
@@ -1,7 +1,6 @@
 import unittest
 import warnings
 
-from six import assertRaisesRegex
 from w3lib.http import basic_auth_header
 
 from scrapy import Request
@@ -177,8 +176,7 @@ class CurlToRequestKwargsTest(unittest.TestCase):
         self.assertEqual(curl_to_request_kwargs(curl_command), expected_result)
 
     def test_too_few_arguments_error(self):
-        assertRaisesRegex(
-            self,
+        self.assertRaisesRegex(
             ValueError,
             r"too few arguments|the following arguments are required:\s*url",
             lambda: curl_to_request_kwargs("curl"),
@@ -194,8 +192,7 @@ class CurlToRequestKwargsTest(unittest.TestCase):
             self.assertEqual(curl_to_request_kwargs(curl_command), expected_result)
 
         # case 2: ignore_unknown_options=False (raise exception):
-        assertRaisesRegex(
-            self,
+        self.assertRaisesRegex(
             ValueError,
             "Unrecognized options:.*--bar.*--baz",
             lambda: curl_to_request_kwargs(
diff --git a/tests/test_utils_datatypes.py b/tests/test_utils_datatypes.py
index 53228fc6e..38a25778e 100644
--- a/tests/test_utils_datatypes.py
+++ b/tests/test_utils_datatypes.py
@@ -192,14 +192,6 @@ class SequenceExcludeTest(unittest.TestCase):
         self.assertIn(20, d)
         self.assertNotIn(15, d)
 
-    def test_six_range(self):
-        import six.moves
-        seq = six.moves.range(10**3, 10**6)
-        d = SequenceExclude(seq)
-        self.assertIn(10**2, d)
-        self.assertIn(10**7, d)
-        self.assertNotIn(10**4, d)
-
     def test_range_step(self):
         seq = range(10, 20, 3)
         d = SequenceExclude(seq)
diff --git a/tests/test_utils_defer.py b/tests/test_utils_defer.py
index d642ed3ed..49c2befb5 100644
--- a/tests/test_utils_defer.py
+++ b/tests/test_utils_defer.py
@@ -5,8 +5,6 @@ from twisted.python.failure import Failure
 from scrapy.utils.defer import mustbe_deferred, process_chain, \
     process_chain_both, process_parallel, iter_errback
 
-from six.moves import xrange
-
 
 class MustbeDeferredTest(unittest.TestCase):
     def test_success_function(self):
@@ -92,7 +90,7 @@ class IterErrbackTest(unittest.TestCase):
 
     def test_iter_errback_good(self):
         def itergood():
-            for x in xrange(10):
+            for x in range(10):
                 yield x
 
         errors = []
@@ -102,7 +100,7 @@ class IterErrbackTest(unittest.TestCase):
 
     def test_iter_errback_bad(self):
         def iterbad():
-            for x in xrange(10):
+            for x in range(10):
                 if x == 5:
                     a = 1/0
                 yield x
diff --git a/tests/test_utils_deprecate.py b/tests/test_utils_deprecate.py
index ce04e7f29..159ef8f25 100644
--- a/tests/test_utils_deprecate.py
+++ b/tests/test_utils_deprecate.py
@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@
 # -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
-from __future__ import absolute_import
 import inspect
 import unittest
 from unittest import mock
diff --git a/tests/test_utils_httpobj.py b/tests/test_utils_httpobj.py
index 2c3965bbc..cf8ad1f23 100644
--- a/tests/test_utils_httpobj.py
+++ b/tests/test_utils_httpobj.py
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 import unittest
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urlparse
+from urllib.parse import urlparse
 
 from scrapy.http import Request
 from scrapy.utils.httpobj import urlparse_cached
diff --git a/tests/test_utils_iterators.py b/tests/test_utils_iterators.py
index f16ef8110..9776dfb2a 100644
--- a/tests/test_utils_iterators.py
+++ b/tests/test_utils_iterators.py
@@ -1,12 +1,13 @@
 # -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
 import os
-import six
+
 from twisted.trial import unittest
 
 from scrapy.utils.iterators import csviter, xmliter, _body_or_str, xmliter_lxml
 from scrapy.http import XmlResponse, TextResponse, Response
 from tests import get_testdata
 
+
 FOOBAR_NL = u"foo\nbar"
 
 
@@ -256,8 +257,8 @@ class UtilsCsvTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
 
         # explicit type check cuz' we no like stinkin' autocasting! yarrr
         for result_row in result:
-            self.assertTrue(all((isinstance(k, six.text_type) for k in result_row.keys())))
-            self.assertTrue(all((isinstance(v, six.text_type) for v in result_row.values())))
+            self.assertTrue(all((isinstance(k, str) for k in result_row.keys())))
+            self.assertTrue(all((isinstance(v, str) for v in result_row.values())))
 
     def test_csviter_delimiter(self):
         body = get_testdata('feeds', 'feed-sample3.csv').replace(b',', b'\t')
diff --git a/tests/test_utils_log.py b/tests/test_utils_log.py
index 742e04803..2c23f3616 100644
--- a/tests/test_utils_log.py
+++ b/tests/test_utils_log.py
@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@
 # -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
-from __future__ import print_function
 import sys
 import logging
 import unittest
diff --git a/tests/test_utils_python.py b/tests/test_utils_python.py
index 2d27d4b81..b79e0ac1c 100644
--- a/tests/test_utils_python.py
+++ b/tests/test_utils_python.py
@@ -1,10 +1,9 @@
-import gc
 import functools
+import gc
 import operator
+import platform
 import unittest
 from itertools import count
-import platform
-import six
 from warnings import catch_warnings
 
 from scrapy.utils.python import (
@@ -12,6 +11,7 @@ from scrapy.utils.python import (
     WeakKeyCache, get_func_args, to_bytes, to_unicode,
     without_none_values, MutableChain)
 
+
 __doctests__ = ['scrapy.utils.python']
 
 
@@ -205,12 +205,12 @@ class UtilsPythonTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
 
         if platform.python_implementation() == 'CPython':
             # TODO: how do we fix this to return the actual argument names?
-            self.assertEqual(get_func_args(six.text_type.split), [])
+            self.assertEqual(get_func_args(str.split), [])
             self.assertEqual(get_func_args(" ".join), [])
             self.assertEqual(get_func_args(operator.itemgetter(2)), [])
         else:
             self.assertEqual(
-                get_func_args(six.text_type.split, stripself=True), ['sep', 'maxsplit'])
+                get_func_args(str.split, stripself=True), ['sep', 'maxsplit'])
             self.assertEqual(get_func_args(" ".join, stripself=True), ['list'])
             self.assertEqual(
                 get_func_args(operator.itemgetter(2), stripself=True), ['obj'])
diff --git a/tests/test_utils_request.py b/tests/test_utils_request.py
index 3da95b95a..3e664fc74 100644
--- a/tests/test_utils_request.py
+++ b/tests/test_utils_request.py
@@ -1,4 +1,3 @@
-from __future__ import print_function
 import unittest
 from scrapy.http import Request
 from scrapy.utils.request import request_fingerprint, _fingerprint_cache, \
diff --git a/tests/test_utils_response.py b/tests/test_utils_response.py
index bea4dade3..6ebf290c0 100644
--- a/tests/test_utils_response.py
+++ b/tests/test_utils_response.py
@@ -1,12 +1,13 @@
 import os
 import unittest
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urlparse
+from urllib.parse import urlparse
 
 from scrapy.http import Response, TextResponse, HtmlResponse
 from scrapy.utils.python import to_bytes
 from scrapy.utils.response import (response_httprepr, open_in_browser,
                                    get_meta_refresh, get_base_url, response_status_message)
 
+
 __doctests__ = ['scrapy.utils.response']
 
 
diff --git a/tests/test_utils_trackref.py b/tests/test_utils_trackref.py
index 480a717e7..16e02f919 100644
--- a/tests/test_utils_trackref.py
+++ b/tests/test_utils_trackref.py
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
-import six
 import unittest
+from io import StringIO
 from unittest import mock
+
 from scrapy.utils import trackref
 
 
@@ -38,12 +39,12 @@ Live References
 Bar                                 1   oldest: 0s ago
 ''')
 
-    @mock.patch('sys.stdout', new_callable=six.StringIO)
+    @mock.patch('sys.stdout', new_callable=StringIO)
     def test_print_live_refs_empty(self, stdout):
         trackref.print_live_refs()
         self.assertEqual(stdout.getvalue(), 'Live References\n\n\n')
 
-    @mock.patch('sys.stdout', new_callable=six.StringIO)
+    @mock.patch('sys.stdout', new_callable=StringIO)
     def test_print_live_refs_with_objects(self, stdout):
         o1 = Foo()  # NOQA
         trackref.print_live_refs()
diff --git a/tests/test_utils_url.py b/tests/test_utils_url.py
index c7bcaf88b..21e9a056a 100644
--- a/tests/test_utils_url.py
+++ b/tests/test_utils_url.py
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ from scrapy.spiders import Spider
 from scrapy.utils.url import (url_is_from_any_domain, url_is_from_spider,
                               add_http_if_no_scheme, guess_scheme, strip_url)
 
+
 __doctests__ = ['scrapy.utils.url']
 
 
diff --git a/tests/test_webclient.py b/tests/test_webclient.py
index 7b015ff8d..746367b41 100644
--- a/tests/test_webclient.py
+++ b/tests/test_webclient.py
@@ -3,7 +3,6 @@ from twisted.internet import defer
 Tests borrowed from the twisted.web.client tests.
 """
 import os
-import six
 import shutil
 
 import OpenSSL.SSL
@@ -298,7 +297,7 @@ class WebClientTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
         def cleanup(passthrough):
             # Clean up the server which is hanging around not doing
             # anything.
-            connected = list(six.iterkeys(self.wrapper.protocols))
+            connected = list(self.wrapper.protocols.keys())
             # There might be nothing here if the server managed to already see
             # that the connection was lost.
             if connected: