diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 253032a920..890b30aaaa 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -28,21 +28,7 @@ You can find some details about the format and intended use cases in our [Hadoop
 
 ## Building
 
-Parquet-MR uses Maven to build and depends on both the thrift and protoc compilers.
-
-### Install Protobuf
-
-To build and install the protobuf compiler, run:
-
-```
-wget https://github.com/google/protobuf/archive/v3.5.1.tar.gz -O protobuf-3.5.1.tar.gz
-tar xzf protobuf-3.5.1.tar.gz
-cd protobuf-3.5.1
-./configure
-make
-sudo make install
-sudo ldconfig
-```
+Parquet-MR uses Maven to build and depends on the thrift compiler (protoc is now managed by maven plugin).
 
 ### Install Thrift
 
diff --git a/dev/travis-before_install.sh b/dev/travis-before_install.sh
index 6d0427972c..5161f223f4 100644
--- a/dev/travis-before_install.sh
+++ b/dev/travis-before_install.sh
@@ -26,19 +26,6 @@ sudo apt-get install -qq build-essential pv autoconf automake libtool curl make
    g++ unzip libboost-dev libboost-test-dev libboost-program-options-dev \
    libevent-dev automake libtool flex bison pkg-config g++ libssl-dev xmlstarlet
 date
-mkdir protobuf_install
-pushd protobuf_install
-wget https://github.com/google/protobuf/archive/v3.5.1.tar.gz -O protobuf-3.5.1.tar.gz
-tar xzf protobuf-3.5.1.tar.gz
-cd protobuf-3.5.1
-./autogen.sh
-./configure
-make
-sudo make install
-sudo ldconfig
-protoc --version
-popd
-date
 pwd
 wget -nv http://archive.apache.org/dist/thrift/0.9.3/thrift-0.9.3.tar.gz
 tar zxf thrift-0.9.3.tar.gz