diff --git a/image_explorer/__init__.py b/image_explorer/__init__.py
index ddabe04..464bf53 100644
--- a/image_explorer/__init__.py
+++ b/image_explorer/__init__.py
@@ -22,4 +22,4 @@
 """
 from .image_explorer import ImageExplorerBlock
 
-__version__ = '3.0.2'
+__version__ = '3.1.0'
diff --git a/image_explorer/image_explorer.py b/image_explorer/image_explorer.py
index abb8b6f..d384d00 100644
--- a/image_explorer/image_explorer.py
+++ b/image_explorer/image_explorer.py
@@ -29,11 +29,8 @@
 import logging
 import textwrap
 from io import StringIO
-from urllib.parse import urljoin
 
-from django.conf import settings
 from lxml import etree, html
-from parsel import Selector
 from xblock.completable import XBlockCompletionMode
 from xblock.core import XBlock
 from xblock.fragment import Fragment
@@ -45,6 +42,7 @@
 log = logging.getLogger(__name__)
 
 
+@XBlock.wants('replace_urls')
 @XBlock.needs('i18n')
 class ImageExplorerBlock(XBlock):
     """
@@ -210,7 +208,7 @@ def student_view_data(self, context=None):
 
         description = self._get_description(xmltree, absolute_urls=True)
         background = self._get_background(xmltree)
-        background['src'] = self._replace_static_from_url(background['src'])
+        background['src'] = self._replace_relative_static_urls(background['src'])
         hotspots = self._get_hotspots(xmltree, absolute_urls=True)
         return {
             'description': description,
@@ -327,25 +325,6 @@ def _get_background(xmltree):
             'height': background.get('height')
         })
 
-    def _replace_static_from_url(self, url):
-        if not url:
-            return url
-        try:
-            from static_replace import replace_static_urls
-        except ImportError:
-            return url
-
-        url = '"{}"'.format(url)
-        lms_relative_url = replace_static_urls(url, course_id=self.course_id)  # pylint: disable=no-member
-        lms_relative_url = lms_relative_url.strip('"')
-        return self._make_url_absolute(lms_relative_url)
-
-    @staticmethod
-    def _make_url_absolute(url):
-        lms_base = settings.ENV_TOKENS.get('LMS_BASE')
-        scheme = 'https' if settings.HTTPS == 'on' else 'http'
-        lms_base = '{}://{}'.format(scheme, lms_base)
-        return urljoin(lms_base, url)
 
     def _inner_content(self, tag, absolute_urls=False):
         """
@@ -354,7 +333,7 @@ def _inner_content(self, tag, absolute_urls=False):
         if tag is not None:
             tag_content = ''.join([ html.tostring(e, encoding=str) for e in tag ])
             if absolute_urls:
-                return self._change_relative_url_to_absolute(tag_content)
+                return self._replace_relative_static_urls(tag_content)
             return tag_content
         return None
 
@@ -368,11 +347,11 @@ def _get_description(self, xmltree, absolute_urls=False):
             return description
         return None
 
-    def _change_relative_url_to_absolute(self, text):
-        if text:
-            relative_urls = Selector(text=text).css('::attr(href),::attr(src)').extract()
-            for url in relative_urls:
-                text = text.replace(url, self._replace_static_from_url(url))
+    def _replace_relative_static_urls(self, text):
+        if replace_urls_service := self.runtime.service(self, 'replace_urls'):
+            text = replace_urls_service.replace_urls(text)
+        else:
+            log.error('Unable to perform URL substitution on the following content: %s', text)
         return text
 
     def _get_hotspots(self, xmltree, absolute_urls=False):
diff --git a/image_explorer/public/js/image_explorer.js b/image_explorer/public/js/image_explorer.js
index c4e2679..0ab68df 100644
--- a/image_explorer/public/js/image_explorer.js
+++ b/image_explorer/public/js/image_explorer.js
@@ -4,9 +4,7 @@ function applyHotspotButtonStyle(element, data) {
 
 function ImageExplorerBlock(runtime, element, data) {
 
-    if (data['authoring_view'] === 'true') {
-        applyHotspotButtonStyle(element, data);
-    }
+    applyHotspotButtonStyle(element, data);
     var hotspot_opened_at = null;
     var active_feedback = null;
     // Holds a reference to YouTube API Player objects.
diff --git a/image_explorer/public/js/image_explorer_edit.js b/image_explorer/public/js/image_explorer_edit.js
index c9776fb..2d4fb04 100644
--- a/image_explorer/public/js/image_explorer_edit.js
+++ b/image_explorer/public/js/image_explorer_edit.js
@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ function ImageExplorerEditBlock(runtime, element) {
         $('.xblock-editor-error-message', element).css('display', 'none');
         $.post(handlerUrl, JSON.stringify(data)).done(function(response) {
             if (response.result === 'success') {
+                runtime.notify('save', {state: 'end'})
                 window.location.reload(false);
             } else {
                 $('.xblock-editor-error-message', element).html('Error: '+response.message);
diff --git a/requirements/base.in b/requirements/base.in
index 99aae93..098b2fa 100644
--- a/requirements/base.in
+++ b/requirements/base.in
@@ -2,4 +2,3 @@
 -c constraints.txt
 
 xblock[django]
-parsel
diff --git a/requirements/base.txt b/requirements/base.txt
index 386b876..05a6e29 100644
--- a/requirements/base.txt
+++ b/requirements/base.txt
@@ -14,10 +14,6 @@ botocore==1.41.2
     # via
     #   boto3
     #   s3transfer
-cssselect==1.2.0
-    # via
-    #   -c requirements/constraints.txt
-    #   parsel
 django==5.2.8
     # via
     #   -c https://raw.githubusercontent.com/edx/edx-lint/master/edx_lint/files/common_constraints.txt
@@ -36,9 +32,7 @@ jmespath==1.0.1
 lazy==1.6
     # via xblock
 lxml==6.0.2
-    # via
-    #   parsel
-    #   xblock
+    # via xblock
 mako==1.3.10
     # via xblock
 markupsafe==3.0.3
@@ -47,10 +41,6 @@ markupsafe==3.0.3
     #   xblock
 openedx-django-pyfs==3.8.0
     # via xblock
-parsel==1.6.0
-    # via
-    #   -c requirements/constraints.txt
-    #   -r requirements/base.in
 python-dateutil==2.9.0.post0
     # via
     #   botocore
@@ -67,14 +57,11 @@ six==1.17.0
     # via
     #   fs
     #   fs-s3fs
-    #   parsel
     #   python-dateutil
 sqlparse==0.5.3
     # via django
 urllib3==2.5.0
     # via botocore
-w3lib==2.3.1
-    # via parsel
 web-fragments==3.1.0
     # via xblock
 webob==1.8.9
diff --git a/requirements/constraints.txt b/requirements/constraints.txt
index ddf179d..a737d6f 100644
--- a/requirements/constraints.txt
+++ b/requirements/constraints.txt
@@ -10,19 +10,3 @@
 
 # Common constraints for edx repos
 -c https://raw.githubusercontent.com/edx/edx-lint/master/edx_lint/files/common_constraints.txt
-#
-# Parsel needs to know the lxml version https://github.com/scrapy/parsel/blob/master/parsel/selector.py#L35.
-# Since this information was not being passed and etree flavor of openedx doesn't open version for outside
-# we had to pin parsel which doesn't have this code branch.
-#
-# And this version of parsel has cssselect which doesn't expose
-# '_unicode_safe_getattr' hence we had to pin cssselect to the required version.
-#
-# This issue has been explained in https://github.com/openedx/xblock-image-explorer/pull/195#issuecomment-2844971682
-#
-# This can be removed once we resolve
-# https://github.com/openedx/xblock-image-explorer/issues/197#issue-3048741312,
-# one of the ways to do is to remove the dependency on Parsel as explained in
-# https://github.com/openedx/xblock-image-explorer/pull/195#pullrequestreview-2808751843
-parsel==v1.6
-cssselect==v1.2
diff --git a/requirements/test.txt b/requirements/test.txt
index 583b8b6..b1a74da 100644
--- a/requirements/test.txt
+++ b/requirements/test.txt
@@ -49,11 +49,6 @@ cookiecutter==2.6.0
     # via xblock-sdk
 coverage[toml]==7.12.0
     # via pytest-cov
-cssselect==1.2.0
-    # via
-    #   -c requirements/constraints.txt
-    #   -r requirements/base.txt
-    #   parsel
 dill==0.4.0
     # via pylint
     # via
@@ -96,7 +91,6 @@ lazy==1.6
 lxml==6.0.2
     # via
     #   -r requirements/base.txt
-    #   parsel
     #   xblock
     #   xblock-sdk
 mako==1.3.10
@@ -123,10 +117,6 @@ openedx-django-pyfs==3.8.0
     #   xblock
 packaging==25.0
     # via pytest
-parsel==1.6.0
-    # via
-    #   -c requirements/constraints.txt
-    #   -r requirements/base.txt
 platformdirs==4.5.0
     # via pylint
 pluggy==1.6.0
@@ -204,7 +194,6 @@ six==1.17.0
     #   edx-lint
     #   fs
     #   fs-s3fs
-    #   parsel
     #   python-dateutil
 sqlparse==0.5.3
     # via
@@ -223,10 +212,6 @@ urllib3==2.5.0
     #   -r requirements/base.txt
     #   botocore
     #   requests
-w3lib==2.3.1
-    # via
-    #   -r requirements/base.txt
-    #   parsel
 web-fragments==3.1.0
     # via
     #   -r requirements/base.txt
diff --git a/tests/test_image_explorer.py b/tests/test_image_explorer.py
index 1d64556..c881a6d 100644
--- a/tests/test_image_explorer.py
+++ b/tests/test_image_explorer.py
@@ -1,9 +1,9 @@
 import unittest
+from unittest.mock import Mock
+import xml
 from mock import patch
+import re
 from lxml import etree
-
-from parsel import Selector
-
 from django.test import override_settings
 from xblock.field_data import DictFieldData
 
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ def setUp(self):
         self.runtime = MockRuntime()
         patch_static_replace_module()
 
-        self.processed_absolute_url = 'https://lms/a/dynamic/url'
+        self.processed_absolute_url = '/course/test-course/assets/test.jpg'
         self.image_url = '/static/test.jpg'
         self.image_explorer_description = '<p>Test Descrption</p><img src="/static/test.jpg" />'
         self.image_explorer_xml = """
@@ -67,6 +67,11 @@ def setUp(self):
             None
         )
         self.image_explorer_block.course_id = 'abc/xyz/123'
+        self.runtime._services['replace_urls'] = Mock(
+            replace_urls=lambda html, static_replace_only=False: re.sub(
+                r'/static/([^"\s]*)', r'/course/test-course/assets/\1', html
+            )
+        )
 
     @override_settings(ENV_TOKENS={'LMS_BASE': 'lms'}, HTTPS='on')
     def test_student_view_data(self):
@@ -98,10 +103,8 @@ def test_static_urls_conversion(self):
         description = self.image_explorer_block._inner_content(
             xmltree.find('description'), absolute_urls=True
         )
-
-        relative_urls = Selector(text=description).css('::attr(href),::attr(src)').extract()
-        for url in relative_urls:
-            self.assertEqual(url, self.processed_absolute_url)
+        relative_url = etree.HTML(description).find('.//img').get('src')
+        self.assertEqual(relative_url, self.processed_absolute_url)
 
     def test_student_view_multi_device_support(self):
         """