diff --git a/WHATSNEW b/WHATSNEW
index 43fb6a5b7..8f8d635e7 100644
--- a/WHATSNEW
+++ b/WHATSNEW
@@ -13,6 +13,14 @@ Changes that could break older environments:
    on Ant silently ignoring all but the first character.
    Bugzilla Report 56584
 
+ * The changes that added <get>'s support for gzip encoding
+   automatically uncompressed content that would not have been touched
+   before - like when downloading .tar.gz files.  A new flag has been
+   added to control the behavior and its default will make <get> work
+   as it did in 1.9.3.  I.e. if you want it to work like 1.9.4
+   you have to explicitly set tryGzipEncoding to true.
+   Bugzilla Report 57048
+
 Fixed bugs:
 -----------
 
diff --git a/manual/Tasks/get.html b/manual/Tasks/get.html
index c4b7ef6fd..04bc0e4d5 100644
--- a/manual/Tasks/get.html
+++ b/manual/Tasks/get.html
@@ -134,6 +134,15 @@ plain text' authentication is used. This is only secure over an HTTPS link.
       <em>since Ant 1.9.3</em></td>
     <td align="center" valign="top">No</td>
   </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td valign="top">tryGzipEncoding</td>
+    <td valign="top">When set to true Ant will tell the server it is
+      willing to accept gzip encoding to reduce the amount of data to
+      transfer and uncompress the content transparently.<br/>
+      Setting this to true also means Ant will uncompress
+      <code>.tar.gz</code> and similar files automatically.<br/>
+      <em>since Ant 1.9.5</em></td>
+    <td align="center" valign="top">No; default "false"</td>
 </table>
 <h3>Parameters specified as nested elements</h3>
 <h4>any resource collection</h4>
diff --git a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/Get.java b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/Get.java
index d3af8e166..c636ab54c 100644
--- a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/Get.java
+++ b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/Get.java
@@ -83,6 +83,7 @@ public class Get extends Task {
     private int numberRetries = NUMBER_RETRIES;
     private boolean skipExisting = false;
     private boolean httpUseCaches = true; // on by default
+    private boolean tryGzipEncoding = false;
     private Mapper mapperElement = null;
     private String userAgent =
         System.getProperty(MagicNames.HTTP_AGENT_PROPERTY,
@@ -459,6 +460,19 @@ public class Get extends Task {
         this.httpUseCaches = httpUseCache;
     }
 
+    /**
+     * Whether to transparently try to reduce bandwidth by telling the
+     * server ant would support gzip encoding.
+     *
+     * <p>Setting this to true also means Ant will uncompress
+     * <code>.tar.gz</code> and similar files automatically.</p>
+     *
+     * @since Ant 1.9.5
+     */
+    public void setTryGzipEncoding(boolean b) {
+        tryGzipEncoding = b;
+    }
+
     /**
      * Define the mapper to map source to destination files.
      * @return a mapper to be configured.
@@ -699,7 +713,9 @@ public class Get extends Task {
                         + encoding);
             }
 
-            connection.setRequestProperty("Accept-Encoding", GZIP_CONTENT_ENCODING);
+            if (tryGzipEncoding) {
+                connection.setRequestProperty("Accept-Encoding", GZIP_CONTENT_ENCODING);
+            }
 
             if (connection instanceof HttpURLConnection) {
                 ((HttpURLConnection) connection)
@@ -791,7 +807,8 @@ public class Get extends Task {
                         getLocation());
             }
 
-            if (GZIP_CONTENT_ENCODING.equals(connection.getContentEncoding())) {
+            if (tryGzipEncoding
+                && GZIP_CONTENT_ENCODING.equals(connection.getContentEncoding())) {
                 is = new GZIPInputStream(is);
             }