diff --git a/dinov3/hub/backbones.py b/dinov3/hub/backbones.py
index 3d83e2f..1f30e47 100644
--- a/dinov3/hub/backbones.py
+++ b/dinov3/hub/backbones.py
@@ -7,12 +7,21 @@
 from enum import Enum
 from typing import List, Optional, Union
 from urllib.parse import urlparse
+from urllib.request import url2pathname
 from pathlib import Path
 
 import torch
 
 from .utils import DINOV3_BASE_URL
 
+LOADERS = {
+    "file": lambda url, **_: torch.load(
+        Path(url2pathname(urlparse(url).path)), map_location="cpu", weights_only=True
+    ),
+    "http": lambda url, **kwargs: torch.hub.load_state_dict_from_url(url, map_location="cpu", **kwargs),
+    "https": lambda url, **kwargs: torch.hub.load_state_dict_from_url(url, map_location="cpu", **kwargs),
+}
+
 
 class Weights(Enum):
     LVD1689M = "LVD1689M"
@@ -30,6 +39,18 @@ def convert_path_or_url_to_url(path: str) -> str:
     return Path(path).expanduser().resolve().as_uri()
 
 
+def _load_state_dict(url: str, check_hash: bool = False) -> dict[str, torch.Tensor]:
+    scheme = urlparse(url).scheme
+    if scheme not in LOADERS:
+        raise ValueError(
+            f"Unsupported URL scheme: {scheme}. Supported schemes are: {', '.join(LOADERS.keys())}."
+        )
+
+    loader = LOADERS[scheme]
+    kwargs = {"check_hash": check_hash} if scheme in ("http", "https") else {}
+    return loader(url, **kwargs)
+
+
 def _make_dinov3_vit_model_arch(
     *,
     patch_size: int = 16,
@@ -137,7 +158,7 @@ def _make_dinov3_vit(
             )
         else:
             url = convert_path_or_url_to_url(weights)
-        state_dict = torch.hub.load_state_dict_from_url(url, map_location="cpu", check_hash=check_hash)
+        state_dict = _load_state_dict(url, check_hash=check_hash)
         model.load_state_dict(state_dict, strict=True)
     else:
         model.init_weights()