diff --git a/yt_dlp/downloader/external.py b/yt_dlp/downloader/external.py
index cfa646ebc1..c900b38422 100644
--- a/yt_dlp/downloader/external.py
+++ b/yt_dlp/downloader/external.py
@@ -169,7 +169,7 @@ class CurlFD(ExternalFD):
     AVAILABLE_OPT = '-V'
 
     def _make_cmd(self, tmpfilename, info_dict):
-        cmd = [self.exe, '--location', '-o', tmpfilename]
+        cmd = [self.exe, '--location', '-o', tmpfilename, '--compressed']
         if info_dict.get('http_headers') is not None:
             for key, val in info_dict['http_headers'].items():
                 cmd += ['--header', '%s: %s' % (key, val)]
@@ -219,7 +219,7 @@ class WgetFD(ExternalFD):
     AVAILABLE_OPT = '--version'
 
     def _make_cmd(self, tmpfilename, info_dict):
-        cmd = [self.exe, '-O', tmpfilename, '-nv', '--no-cookies']
+        cmd = [self.exe, '-O', tmpfilename, '-nv', '--no-cookies', '--compression=auto']
         if info_dict.get('http_headers') is not None:
             for key, val in info_dict['http_headers'].items():
                 cmd += ['--header', '%s: %s' % (key, val)]
diff --git a/yt_dlp/utils.py b/yt_dlp/utils.py
index a08dc3c117..c71a7b8331 100644
--- a/yt_dlp/utils.py
+++ b/yt_dlp/utils.py
@@ -159,7 +159,6 @@ def random_user_agent():
 std_headers = {
     'User-Agent': random_user_agent(),
     'Accept': 'text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8',
-    'Accept-Encoding': ', '.join(SUPPORTED_ENCODINGS),
     'Accept-Language': 'en-us,en;q=0.5',
     'Sec-Fetch-Mode': 'navigate',
 }
@@ -1401,6 +1400,9 @@ def http_request(self, req):
             if h.capitalize() not in req.headers:
                 req.add_header(h, v)
 
+        if 'Accept-encoding' not in req.headers:
+            req.add_header('Accept-encoding', ', '.join(SUPPORTED_ENCODINGS))
+
         req.headers = handle_youtubedl_headers(req.headers)
 
         if sys.version_info < (2, 7) and '#' in req.get_full_url():