diff --git a/http.c b/http.c
index deea47411a..b4bfbceaeb 100644
--- a/http.c
+++ b/http.c
@@ -1788,7 +1788,7 @@ static int http_request(const char *url,
 
 	curl_easy_setopt(slot->curl, CURLOPT_URL, url);
 	curl_easy_setopt(slot->curl, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, headers);
-	curl_easy_setopt(slot->curl, CURLOPT_ENCODING, "gzip");
+	curl_easy_setopt(slot->curl, CURLOPT_ENCODING, "");
 
 	ret = run_one_slot(slot, &results);
 
diff --git a/remote-curl.c b/remote-curl.c
index ceb05347bd..99b0bedc6d 100644
--- a/remote-curl.c
+++ b/remote-curl.c
@@ -684,7 +684,7 @@ 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, "gzip");
+	curl_easy_setopt(slot->curl, CURLOPT_ENCODING, "");
 
 	if (large_request) {
 		/* The request body is large and the size cannot be predicted.
@@ -1259,6 +1259,7 @@ static int proxy_request(struct proxy_state *p)
 
 	slot = get_active_slot();
 
+	curl_easy_setopt(slot->curl, CURLOPT_ENCODING, "");
 	curl_easy_setopt(slot->curl, CURLOPT_NOBODY, 0);
 	curl_easy_setopt(slot->curl, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
 	curl_easy_setopt(slot->curl, CURLOPT_URL, p->service_url);
diff --git a/t/t5551-http-fetch-smart.sh b/t/t5551-http-fetch-smart.sh
index f5721b4a59..913089b144 100755
--- a/t/t5551-http-fetch-smart.sh
+++ b/t/t5551-http-fetch-smart.sh
@@ -26,14 +26,14 @@ setup_askpass_helper
 cat >exp <<EOF
 > GET /smart/repo.git/info/refs?service=git-upload-pack HTTP/1.1
 > Accept: */*
-> Accept-Encoding: gzip
+> Accept-Encoding: ENCODINGS
 > 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: gzip
+> Accept-Encoding: ENCODINGS
 > Content-Type: application/x-git-upload-pack-request
 > Accept: application/x-git-upload-pack-result
 > Content-Length: xxx
@@ -79,8 +79,13 @@ test_expect_success 'clone http repository' '
 		/^< Date: /d
 		/^< Content-Length: /d
 		/^< Transfer-Encoding: /d
-	" >act &&
-	test_cmp exp act
+	" >actual &&
+	sed -e "s/^> Accept-Encoding: .*/> Accept-Encoding: ENCODINGS/" \
+			actual >actual.smudged &&
+	test_cmp exp actual.smudged &&
+
+	grep "Accept-Encoding:.*gzip" actual >actual.gzip &&
+	test_line_count = 2 actual.gzip
 '
 
 test_expect_success 'fetch changes via http' '