diff --git a/toolchains/arduino/org.eclipse.cdt.arduino.core/src/org/eclipse/cdt/arduino/core/internal/ArduinoPreferences.java b/toolchains/arduino/org.eclipse.cdt.arduino.core/src/org/eclipse/cdt/arduino/core/internal/ArduinoPreferences.java
index d67b831ac73..0bd021416b3 100644
--- a/toolchains/arduino/org.eclipse.cdt.arduino.core/src/org/eclipse/cdt/arduino/core/internal/ArduinoPreferences.java
+++ b/toolchains/arduino/org.eclipse.cdt.arduino.core/src/org/eclipse/cdt/arduino/core/internal/ArduinoPreferences.java
@@ -26,7 +26,6 @@ public class ArduinoPreferences {
 
 	private static final String defaultHome = Paths.get(System.getProperty("user.home"), ".arduinocdt").toString(); //$NON-NLS-1$ //$NON-NLS-2$
 	private static final String defaultBoardUrls = "http://downloads.arduino.cc/packages/package_index.json" //$NON-NLS-1$
-			+ "\nhttp://arduino.esp8266.com/stable/package_esp8266com_index.json" //$NON-NLS-1$
 			+ "\nhttps://adafruit.github.io/arduino-board-index/package_adafruit_index.json"; //$NON-NLS-1$
 
 	private static IEclipsePreferences getPrefs() {
diff --git a/toolchains/arduino/org.eclipse.cdt.arduino.core/src/org/eclipse/cdt/arduino/core/internal/board/ArduinoManager.java b/toolchains/arduino/org.eclipse.cdt.arduino.core/src/org/eclipse/cdt/arduino/core/internal/board/ArduinoManager.java
index 3f43f9c2de9..2e4e07d2d00 100644
--- a/toolchains/arduino/org.eclipse.cdt.arduino.core/src/org/eclipse/cdt/arduino/core/internal/board/ArduinoManager.java
+++ b/toolchains/arduino/org.eclipse.cdt.arduino.core/src/org/eclipse/cdt/arduino/core/internal/board/ArduinoManager.java
@@ -200,11 +200,15 @@ public class ArduinoManager {
 			Path packagePath = ArduinoPreferences.getArduinoHome().resolve(Paths.get(url.getPath()).getFileName());
 			try {
 				Files.createDirectories(ArduinoPreferences.getArduinoHome());
-				try (InputStream in = url.openStream()) {
+				URLConnection connection = url.openConnection();
+				connection.setRequestProperty("User-Agent", //$NON-NLS-1$
+						"Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.4; en-US; rv:1.9.2.2) Gecko/20100316 Firefox/3.6.2"); //$NON-NLS-1$
+				try (InputStream in = connection.getInputStream()) {
 					Files.copy(in, packagePath, StandardCopyOption.REPLACE_EXISTING);
 				}
 			} catch (IOException e) {
-				throw Activator.coreException(String.format("Error loading %s", url.toString()), e); //$NON-NLS-1$
+				// Log and continue, URLs sometimes come and go
+				Activator.log(e);
 			}
 			sub.worked(1);
 		}