diff --git a/.vscode/settings.json b/.vscode/settings.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a1f4944
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.vscode/settings.json
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+{
+    "python.pythonPath": "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Python39-32\\python.exe"
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index c1089aa..1e0326c 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -1,12 +1,12 @@
-Pyfire XMPP Project
-===================
+Pyfire 2.0 XMPP Server Project
+===============================
 
 Having used some other implementations in the past, we decided to roll our own. Development just has begun, so don't expect anything fancy yet...
 
 Dependencies
 ============
 
-- Python 2.6 with ElementTree 1.3 or Python 2.7
+- Python 3.9 with ElementTree
 - Tornado
 - pyzmq (Python bindings for libzmq, ØMQ)
 - sqlalchemy
diff --git a/bin/server.py b/bin/server.py
index 70f88a9..5359195 100755
--- a/bin/server.py
+++ b/bin/server.py
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@
 import functools
 import contextlib
 import socket
-import thread
+import _thread
 
 from zmq.eventloop import ioloop
 
@@ -45,7 +45,7 @@ def start_client_listener():
         io_loop.start()
     except (KeyboardInterrupt, SystemExit):
         io_loop.stop()
-        print "exited cleanly"
+        print("exited cleanly")
 
 def fire_up():
     import pyfire.storage
diff --git a/pyfire/auth/registry.py b/pyfire/auth/registry.py
index 1cad351..70e11d3 100644
--- a/pyfire/auth/registry.py
+++ b/pyfire/auth/registry.py
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@
     :license: BSD, see LICENSE for more details.
 """
 
-from thread import allocate_lock
+from _thread import allocate_lock
 
 from pyfire.auth.backends import InvalidAuthenticationError
 
diff --git a/pyfire/configuration.py b/pyfire/configuration.py
index c49ee75..772358d 100644
--- a/pyfire/configuration.py
+++ b/pyfire/configuration.py
@@ -9,10 +9,10 @@
     :license: BSD, see LICENSE for more details.
 """
 
-import ConfigParser
+import configparser
 import os.path
 
-config = ConfigParser.SafeConfigParser()
+config = configparser.SafeConfigParser()
 
 config.add_section('database')
 config.set('database', 'dburi', 'sqlite:///pyfire.db')
@@ -42,5 +42,5 @@ def getlist(section, option, separator=','):
 # some handy shortcuts
 get = config.get
 getint = config.getint
-NoOptionError = ConfigParser.NoOptionError
+NoOptionError = configparser.NoOptionError
 set = config.set
diff --git a/pyfire/server.py b/pyfire/server.py
index 79aa3ac..641ebca 100644
--- a/pyfire/server.py
+++ b/pyfire/server.py
@@ -111,7 +111,7 @@ def _handle_events(self, fd, events):
         while True:
             try:
                 connection, address = self._sockets[fd].accept()
-            except socket.error, e:
+            except(socket.error, e):
                 if e.args[0] in (errno.EWOULDBLOCK, errno.EAGAIN):
                     return
                 raise
@@ -121,7 +121,7 @@ def _handle_events(self, fd, events):
                 self._connections[address] = XMPPConnection(stream, address)
                 if not self.checker._running:
                     self.checker.start()
-            except Exception, e:
+            except (Exception, e):
                 exc_type, exc_value, exc_traceback = sys.exc_info()
                 log.error("Error in connection callback, %s" % str(e))
                 for line in traceback.format_tb(exc_traceback):
diff --git a/pyfire/singletons.py b/pyfire/singletons.py
index 45589b3..7eebbd4 100644
--- a/pyfire/singletons.py
+++ b/pyfire/singletons.py
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@
     :license: BSD, see LICENSE for more details.
 """
 
-from thread import allocate_lock
+from _thread import allocate_lock
 
 import zmq
 
diff --git a/pyfire/stanza_processor.py b/pyfire/stanza_processor.py
index 242f03f..ce63b35 100644
--- a/pyfire/stanza_processor.py
+++ b/pyfire/stanza_processor.py
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@
     :license: BSD, see LICENSE for more details.
 """
 
-import cPickle
+import pickle
 import zmq
 from zmq.eventloop import ioloop, zmqstream
 import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
@@ -76,6 +76,6 @@ def handle_stanza(self, msgs):
                                 self.forwarder.send(cPickle.dumps(resp))
                         else:
                             self.forwarder.send(cPickle.dumps(response))
-                except StanzaError, e:
+                except (StanzaError, e):
                     # send caught errors back to sender
                     self.forwarder.send(cPickle.dumps(e.element))
diff --git a/pyfire/stream/stanzas/__init__.py b/pyfire/stream/stanzas/__init__.py
index 7a6bb8e..b09d075 100644
--- a/pyfire/stream/stanzas/__init__.py
+++ b/pyfire/stream/stanzas/__init__.py
@@ -9,9 +9,9 @@
     :license: BSD, see LICENSE for more details.
 """
 
-import cPickle
+import pickle
 import uuid
-from thread import allocate_lock
+from _thread import allocate_lock
 import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
 
 import zmq
@@ -103,7 +103,7 @@ def contenthandler(self, tree):
                     raise NotAuthorizedError
                 self.publish_stanza(tree)
 
-        except StreamError, e:
+        except(StreamError, e):
             self.send_string(unicode(e))
             self.connection.stop_connection()
 
diff --git a/pyfire/stream/stanzas/iq/query.py b/pyfire/stream/stanzas/iq/query.py
index 6ac6973..e8d86ef 100644
--- a/pyfire/stream/stanzas/iq/query.py
+++ b/pyfire/stream/stanzas/iq/query.py
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@
 class Query(object):
     """Handles all iq-query xmpp frames"""
 
-    __slots__ = ('handler', 'request', 'response', 'sender')
+    __slots__ = ( 'request', 'response', 'sender')
 
     def handle(self, request, sender):
         self.request = request
diff --git a/pyfire/zmq_forwarder.py b/pyfire/zmq_forwarder.py
index bfbe452..9da98b9 100644
--- a/pyfire/zmq_forwarder.py
+++ b/pyfire/zmq_forwarder.py
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@
 
 import uuid
 import random
-import cPickle
+import pickle
 import zmq
 from zmq.eventloop import ioloop, zmqstream