--- a/src/nemesis-fileio.c
+++ b/src/nemesis-fileio.c
@@ -63,7 +63,7 @@
         fp = stdin;
         fd = fileno(fp);
     }
-    else if ((fd = open(file, O_RDONLY)) < 0)
+    else if ((fp = fopen(file, "rb")) < 0)
     {
 #if !defined(WIN32)
         fprintf(stderr, "ERROR: Unable to open %s file: %s. %s\n",
@@ -82,8 +82,12 @@
         return -1;
     }
 
+#ifdef DEBUG
+    printf("DEBUG: trying to read max %u bytes from %s\n", maxsize, file);
+#endif
+
     /* read() can return negative values on successful reads, test for -1 */
-    if ((bytesread = read(fd, (void *)memory, maxsize)) == -1)
+    if ((bytesread = fread((void *)memory, 1, maxsize, fp)) == -1)
     {
 #if !defined(WIN32)
         fprintf(stderr, "ERROR: Unable to read %s file: %s. %s\n",
@@ -106,6 +110,11 @@
         if (strncmp(file, "-", 1))
             close(fd);
     }
+
+#ifdef DEBUG
+    printf("DEBUG: bytes read from %s: %u.\n", file, bytesread);
+#endif
+
     return bytesread;
 }