diff --git a/http.c b/http.c
index 9bac1d89fdb639f6991bfe9f683ccf7bd5ada4cb..345c171c5fd572e65e34ea421a334141a5438979 100644
--- a/http.c
+++ b/http.c
@@ -818,6 +818,7 @@ static int http_request(const char *url, void *result, int target, int options)
 
 	curl_easy_setopt(slot->curl, CURLOPT_URL, url);
 	curl_easy_setopt(slot->curl, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, headers);
+	curl_easy_setopt(slot->curl, CURLOPT_ENCODING, "gzip");
 
 	if (start_active_slot(slot)) {
 		run_active_slot(slot);
diff --git a/remote-curl.c b/remote-curl.c
index 2359f59202ac63566caa893a85a1356dbd8d5526..a2696082fb8881d74de7a2f9c473fb03f82d81ec 100644
--- a/remote-curl.c
+++ b/remote-curl.c
@@ -379,7 +379,7 @@ static int probe_rpc(struct rpc_state *rpc)
 	curl_easy_setopt(slot->curl, CURLOPT_NOBODY, 0);
 	curl_easy_setopt(slot->curl, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
 	curl_easy_setopt(slot->curl, CURLOPT_URL, rpc->service_url);
-	curl_easy_setopt(slot->curl, CURLOPT_ENCODING, "");
+	curl_easy_setopt(slot->curl, CURLOPT_ENCODING, NULL);
 	curl_easy_setopt(slot->curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, "0000");
 	curl_easy_setopt(slot->curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDSIZE, 4);
 	curl_easy_setopt(slot->curl, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, headers);
@@ -435,7 +435,7 @@ static int post_rpc(struct rpc_state *rpc)
 	curl_easy_setopt(slot->curl, CURLOPT_NOBODY, 0);
 	curl_easy_setopt(slot->curl, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
 	curl_easy_setopt(slot->curl, CURLOPT_URL, rpc->service_url);
-	curl_easy_setopt(slot->curl, CURLOPT_ENCODING, "");
+	curl_easy_setopt(slot->curl, CURLOPT_ENCODING, "gzip");
 
 	headers = curl_slist_append(headers, rpc->hdr_content_type);
 	headers = curl_slist_append(headers, rpc->hdr_accept);
diff --git a/t/t5551-http-fetch.sh b/t/t5551-http-fetch.sh
index 2db5c3564181818efdf885188d7cc597024c6f12..380c17541efd39946fe14c924b84bc212c435f17 100755
--- a/t/t5551-http-fetch.sh
+++ b/t/t5551-http-fetch.sh
@@ -32,13 +32,14 @@ setup_askpass_helper
 cat >exp <<EOF
 > GET /smart/repo.git/info/refs?service=git-upload-pack HTTP/1.1
 > Accept: */*
+> Accept-Encoding: gzip
 > Pragma: no-cache
 < HTTP/1.1 200 OK
 < Pragma: no-cache
 < Cache-Control: no-cache, max-age=0, must-revalidate
 < Content-Type: application/x-git-upload-pack-advertisement
 > POST /smart/repo.git/git-upload-pack HTTP/1.1
-> Accept-Encoding: deflate, gzip
+> Accept-Encoding: gzip
 > Content-Type: application/x-git-upload-pack-request
 > Accept: application/x-git-upload-pack-result
 > Content-Length: xxx