diff --git a/src/binary.ts b/src/binary.ts
index 6c215f23..53c62a83 100644
--- a/src/binary.ts
+++ b/src/binary.ts
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-import { isUint8Array } from './parser/utils';
+import { isAnyArrayBuffer, isUint8Array } from './parser/utils';
 import type { EJSONOptions } from './extended_json';
 import { BSONError } from './error';
 import { BSON_BINARY_SUBTYPE_UUID_NEW } from './constants';
@@ -65,27 +65,19 @@ export class Binary extends BSONValue {
 
   /**
    * Create a new Binary instance.
-   *
-   * This constructor can accept a string as its first argument. In this case,
-   * this string will be encoded using ISO-8859-1, **not** using UTF-8.
-   * This is almost certainly not what you want. Use `new Binary(Buffer.from(string))`
-   * instead to convert the string to a Buffer using UTF-8 first.
-   *
    * @param buffer - a buffer object containing the binary data.
    * @param subType - the option binary type.
    */
-  constructor(buffer?: string | BinarySequence, subType?: number) {
+  constructor(buffer?: BinarySequence, subType?: number) {
     super();
     if (
       !(buffer == null) &&
-      !(typeof buffer === 'string') &&
+      typeof buffer === 'string' &&
       !ArrayBuffer.isView(buffer) &&
-      !(buffer instanceof ArrayBuffer) &&
+      !isAnyArrayBuffer(buffer) &&
       !Array.isArray(buffer)
     ) {
-      throw new BSONError(
-        'Binary can only be constructed from string, Buffer, TypedArray, or Array<number>'
-      );
+      throw new BSONError('Binary can only be constructed from Uint8Array or number[]');
     }
 
     this.sub_type = subType ?? Binary.BSON_BINARY_SUBTYPE_DEFAULT;
@@ -95,17 +87,9 @@ export class Binary extends BSONValue {
       this.buffer = ByteUtils.allocate(Binary.BUFFER_SIZE);
       this.position = 0;
     } else {
-      if (typeof buffer === 'string') {
-        // string
-        this.buffer = ByteUtils.fromISO88591(buffer);
-      } else if (Array.isArray(buffer)) {
-        // number[]
-        this.buffer = ByteUtils.fromNumberArray(buffer);
-      } else {
-        // Buffer | TypedArray | ArrayBuffer
-        this.buffer = ByteUtils.toLocalBufferType(buffer);
-      }
-
+      this.buffer = Array.isArray(buffer)
+        ? ByteUtils.fromNumberArray(buffer)
+        : ByteUtils.toLocalBufferType(buffer);
       this.position = this.buffer.byteLength;
     }
   }
@@ -147,12 +131,12 @@ export class Binary extends BSONValue {
   }
 
   /**
-   * Writes a buffer or string to the binary.
+   * Writes a buffer to the binary.
    *
    * @param sequence - a string or buffer to be written to the Binary BSON object.
    * @param offset - specify the binary of where to write the content.
    */
-  write(sequence: string | BinarySequence, offset: number): void {
+  write(sequence: BinarySequence, offset: number): void {
     offset = typeof offset === 'number' ? offset : this.position;
 
     // If the buffer is to small let's extend the buffer
@@ -169,10 +153,7 @@ export class Binary extends BSONValue {
       this.position =
         offset + sequence.byteLength > this.position ? offset + sequence.length : this.position;
     } else if (typeof sequence === 'string') {
-      const bytes = ByteUtils.fromISO88591(sequence);
-      this.buffer.set(bytes, offset);
-      this.position =
-        offset + sequence.length > this.position ? offset + sequence.length : this.position;
+      throw new BSONError('input cannot be string');
     }
   }
 
@@ -189,26 +170,12 @@ export class Binary extends BSONValue {
     return this.buffer.slice(position, position + length);
   }
 
-  /**
-   * Returns the value of this binary as a string.
-   * @param asRaw - Will skip converting to a string
-   * @remarks
-   * This is handy when calling this function conditionally for some key value pairs and not others
-   */
-  value(asRaw?: boolean): string | BinarySequence {
-    asRaw = !!asRaw;
-
+  /** returns a view of the binary value as a Uint8Array */
+  value(): Uint8Array {
     // Optimize to serialize for the situation where the data == size of buffer
-    if (asRaw && this.buffer.length === this.position) {
-      return this.buffer;
-    }
-
-    // If it's a node.js buffer object
-    if (asRaw) {
-      return this.buffer.slice(0, this.position);
-    }
-    // TODO(NODE-4361): remove binary string support, value(true) should be the default / only option here.
-    return ByteUtils.toISO88591(this.buffer.subarray(0, this.position));
+    return this.buffer.length === this.position
+      ? this.buffer
+      : this.buffer.subarray(0, this.position);
   }
 
   /** the length of the binary sequence */
diff --git a/test/node/bson_node_only_tests.js b/test/node/bson_node_only_tests.js
index 01a2500c..1d2ab795 100644
--- a/test/node/bson_node_only_tests.js
+++ b/test/node/bson_node_only_tests.js
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ const Buffer = require('buffer').Buffer;
 
 describe('BSON - Node only', function () {
   it('Should Correctly Serialize and Deserialize a big Binary object', function (done) {
-    var data = fs.readFileSync(path.resolve(__dirname, './data/test_gs_weird_bug.png'), 'binary');
+    var data = fs.readFileSync(path.resolve(__dirname, './data/test_gs_weird_bug.png'));
     var bin = new Binary();
     bin.write(data);
     var doc = { doc: bin };
@@ -26,18 +26,17 @@ describe('BSON - Node only', function () {
 });
 
 describe('Full BSON - Node only', function () {
-  it('Should Correctly Serialize and Deserialize a big Binary object', function (done) {
-    var data = fs.readFileSync(path.resolve(__dirname, './data/test_gs_weird_bug.png'), 'binary');
+  it('Should Correctly Serialize and Deserialize a big Binary object', function () {
+    var data = fs.readFileSync(path.resolve(__dirname, './data/test_gs_weird_bug.png'));
     var bin = new Binary();
     bin.write(data);
     var doc = { doc: bin };
     var serialized_data = BSON.serialize(doc);
     var deserialized_data = BSON.deserialize(serialized_data);
-    expect(doc.doc.value()).to.equal(deserialized_data.doc.value());
-    done();
+    expect(doc.doc.value()).to.deep.equal(deserialized_data.doc.value());
   });
 
-  it('Should Correctly Deserialize bson file from mongodump', function (done) {
+  it('Should Correctly Deserialize bson file from mongodump', function () {
     var data = fs.readFileSync(path.resolve(__dirname, './data/test.bson'), { encoding: null });
     data = Buffer.from(data);
     var docs = [];
@@ -46,6 +45,5 @@ describe('Full BSON - Node only', function () {
       bsonIndex = BSON.deserializeStream(data, bsonIndex, 1, docs, docs.length, { isArray: true });
 
     expect(docs.length).to.equal(1);
-    done();
   });
 });
diff --git a/test/node/bson_types_construction_tests.js b/test/node/bson_types_construction_tests.js
index 1a1d26e0..a98b1cee 100644
--- a/test/node/bson_types_construction_tests.js
+++ b/test/node/bson_types_construction_tests.js
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ describe('Constructing BSON types', function () {
     expect(() => new BSON.ObjectId()).to.not.throw();
     expect(() => new BSON.BSONRegExp('aaa')).to.not.throw();
     expect(() => new BSON.BSONSymbol('aaa')).to.not.throw();
-    expect(() => new BSON.Binary('aaa')).to.not.throw();
+    expect(() => new BSON.Binary(new Uint8Array())).to.not.throw();
     expect(() => new BSON.Code(function () {})).to.not.throw();
     expect(() => new BSON.Decimal128('123')).to.not.throw();
     expect(() => new BSON.Double(2.3)).to.not.throw();
diff --git a/test/node/extended_json.test.ts b/test/node/extended_json.test.ts
index f452da09..bbeea163 100644
--- a/test/node/extended_json.test.ts
+++ b/test/node/extended_json.test.ts
@@ -184,7 +184,7 @@ describe('Extended JSON', function () {
 
   it('should serialize from BSON object to EJSON object', function () {
     const doc = {
-      binary: new Binary(''),
+      binary: new Binary(new Uint8Array([0, 0, 0]), 0xef),
       code: new Code('function() {}'),
       dbRef: new DBRef('tests', new Int32(1), 'test'),
       decimal128: new Decimal128('128'),
@@ -203,7 +203,7 @@ describe('Extended JSON', function () {
 
     const result = EJSON.serialize(doc, { relaxed: false });
     expect(result).to.deep.equal({
-      binary: { $binary: { base64: '', subType: '00' } },
+      binary: { $binary: { base64: 'AAAA', subType: 'ef' } },
       code: { $code: 'function() {}' },
       dbRef: { $ref: 'tests', $id: { $numberInt: '1' }, $db: 'test' },
       decimal128: { $numberDecimal: '128' },
diff --git a/test/node/test_full_bson.js b/test/node/test_full_bson.js
index 0c9f66e0..5b5803bb 100644
--- a/test/node/test_full_bson.js
+++ b/test/node/test_full_bson.js
@@ -260,17 +260,16 @@ describe('Full BSON', function () {
   /**
    * @ignore
    */
-  it('Should Correctly Serialize and Deserialize a Binary object', function (done) {
+  it('Should Correctly Serialize and Deserialize a Binary object', function () {
     var bin = new Binary();
     var string = 'binstring';
     for (var index = 0; index < string.length; index++) {
-      bin.put(string.charAt(index));
+      bin.put(string[index]);
     }
     var doc = { doc: bin };
     var serialized_data = BSON.serialize(doc);
     var deserialized_data = BSON.deserialize(serialized_data);
-    expect(doc.doc.value()).to.equal(deserialized_data.doc.value());
-    done();
+    expect(doc.doc.value()).to.deep.equal(deserialized_data.doc.value());
   });
 
   it('Should Correctly Serialize and Deserialize a ArrayBuffer object', function () {