diff --git a/Lib/idlelib/ColorDelegator.py b/Lib/idlelib/ColorDelegator.py
index ab69b8a..29b4640 100644
--- a/Lib/idlelib/ColorDelegator.py
+++ b/Lib/idlelib/ColorDelegator.py
@@ -20,10 +20,10 @@
     # 1st 'file' colorized normal, 2nd as builtin, 3rd as string
     builtin = r"([^.'\"\\#]\b|^)" + any("BUILTIN", builtinlist) + r"\b"
     comment = any("COMMENT", [r"#[^\n]*"])
-    sqstring = r"(\b[rRuU])?'[^'\\\n]*(\\.[^'\\\n]*)*'?"
-    dqstring = r'(\b[rRuU])?"[^"\\\n]*(\\.[^"\\\n]*)*"?'
-    sq3string = r"(\b[rRuU])?'''[^'\\]*((\\.|'(?!''))[^'\\]*)*(''')?"
-    dq3string = r'(\b[rRuU])?"""[^"\\]*((\\.|"(?!""))[^"\\]*)*(""")?'
+    sqstring = r"(\b[rRbB])?'[^'\\\n]*(\\.[^'\\\n]*)*'?"
+    dqstring = r'(\b[rRbB])?"[^"\\\n]*(\\.[^"\\\n]*)*"?'
+    sq3string = r"(\b[rRbB])?'''[^'\\]*((\\.|'(?!''))[^'\\]*)*(''')?"
+    dq3string = r'(\b[rRbB])?"""[^"\\]*((\\.|"(?!""))[^"\\]*)*(""")?'
     string = any("STRING", [sq3string, dq3string, sqstring, dqstring])
     return kw + "|" + builtin + "|" + comment + "|" + string +\
            "|" + any("SYNC", [r"\n"])
diff --git a/Misc/ACKS b/Misc/ACKS
index 4effde3..0f92165 100644
--- a/Misc/ACKS
+++ b/Misc/ACKS
@@ -256,6 +256,7 @@
 Rodolpho Eckhardt
 Grant Edwards
 John Ehresman
+Tal Einat
 Eric Eisner
 Andrew Eland
 Julien Élie
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index 8640d70..91fae45 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -90,6 +90,9 @@
 Library
 -------
 
+- Issue #8641: Update IDLE 3 syntax coloring to recognize b".." and not u"..".
+  Patch by Tal Einat.
+
 - tarfile.py: Correctly detect bzip2 compressed streams with blocksizes
   other than 900k.