diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index d30f4ed..ab189e9 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -23,8 +23,8 @@
 
     <properties>
         <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
-        <compiler.source>1.7</compiler.source>
-        <compiler.target>1.7</compiler.target>
+        <compiler.source>1.8</compiler.source>
+        <compiler.target>1.8</compiler.target>
     </properties>
 
     <developers>
@@ -228,7 +228,7 @@
         <dependency><!-- used for the Optional and other things -->
             <groupId>com.google.guava</groupId>
             <artifactId>guava</artifactId>
-            <version>19.0</version>
+            <version>14.0.1</version>
         </dependency>
         <dependency>
             <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
diff --git a/src/main/java/com/optimaize/langdetect/i18n/LdLocale.java b/src/main/java/com/optimaize/langdetect/i18n/LdLocale.java
index c084f7b..697ac44 100644
--- a/src/main/java/com/optimaize/langdetect/i18n/LdLocale.java
+++ b/src/main/java/com/optimaize/langdetect/i18n/LdLocale.java
@@ -17,9 +17,13 @@
 package com.optimaize.langdetect.i18n;
 
 import com.google.common.base.Optional;
+import com.google.common.base.Preconditions;
 import com.google.common.base.Splitter;
 import org.jetbrains.annotations.NotNull;
 
+import java.util.ArrayList;
+import java.util.Collections;
+import java.util.Iterator;
 import java.util.List;
 
 /**
@@ -90,7 +94,7 @@ public static LdLocale fromString(@NotNull String string) {
         Optional<String> script = null;
         Optional<String> region = null;
 
-        List<String> strings = Splitter.on('-').splitToList(string);
+        List<String> strings = splitToList('-', string);
         for (int i=0; i<strings.size(); i++) {
             String chunk = strings.get(i);
             if (i==0) {
@@ -111,6 +115,16 @@ public static LdLocale fromString(@NotNull String string) {
         return new LdLocale(language, script, region);
     }
 
+    private static List<String> splitToList(char separator, String string) {
+        Preconditions.checkNotNull(string);
+        Iterable<String> iterator = Splitter.on(separator).split(string);
+        ArrayList<String> result = new ArrayList<String>();
+        for (String s: iterator) {
+            result.add(s);
+        }
+        return Collections.unmodifiableList(result);
+    }
+
     private static boolean looksLikeScriptCode(String string) {
         return string.length() == 4 && string.matches("[A-Z][a-z]{3}");
     }
diff --git a/src/test/java/com/optimaize/langdetect/ngram/NgramExtractorTest.java b/src/test/java/com/optimaize/langdetect/ngram/NgramExtractorTest.java
index e7a8ee0..04b8ada 100644
--- a/src/test/java/com/optimaize/langdetect/ngram/NgramExtractorTest.java
+++ b/src/test/java/com/optimaize/langdetect/ngram/NgramExtractorTest.java
@@ -79,7 +79,7 @@ public void extractGrams_8() {
     public void stressTestAlgo2() {
         NgramExtractor ngramExtractor = NgramExtractor.gramLengths(1, 2, 3);
         String text = "Foo bar hello world and so on nana nunu dada dudu asdf asdf akewf köjvnawer aisdfj awejfr iajdsöfj ewi adjsköfjwei ajsdökfj ief asd";
-        Stopwatch stopwatch = Stopwatch.createStarted();
+        Stopwatch stopwatch = (new Stopwatch()).start();
         for (int i=0; i<100000; i++) {
             ngramExtractor.extractGrams(text);
         }
diff --git a/src/test/java/com/optimaize/langdetect/ngram/OldNgramExtractorTest.java b/src/test/java/com/optimaize/langdetect/ngram/OldNgramExtractorTest.java
index 4183299..4d22778 100644
--- a/src/test/java/com/optimaize/langdetect/ngram/OldNgramExtractorTest.java
+++ b/src/test/java/com/optimaize/langdetect/ngram/OldNgramExtractorTest.java
@@ -49,7 +49,7 @@ public void testExtractNGrams2() {
     @Test
     public void stressTestAlgo1() {
         String text = "Foo bar hello world and so on nana nunu dada dudu asdf asdf akewf köjvnawer aisdfj awejfr iajdsöfj ewi adjsköfjwei ajsdökfj ief asd";
-        Stopwatch stopwatch = Stopwatch.createStarted();
+        Stopwatch stopwatch = (new Stopwatch()).start();
         for (int i=0; i<100000; i++) {
             OldNgramExtractor.extractNGrams(text, null); //2.745s
         }