This is a bug in the Apache configuration. Read http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_mime.html#multipleext
The server has <IfModule mod_mime.c> AddEncoding x-gzip .gz AddEncoding x-compress .Z AddEncoding x-bzip2 .bz2 </IfModule> and maybe AddType entries as well (probably via a trashy /etc/mime.types). It should have the more complex but correct: <IfModule mod_mime.c> <FilesMatch \.gz$> AddEncoding x-gzip .gz </FilesMatch> <FilesMatch \.Z$> AddEncoding x-compress .Z </FilesMatch> <FilesMatch \.bz2$> AddEncoding x-bzip2 .bz2 </FilesMatch> </IfModule> wget -S http://www.example.com/fred.tar.gz Content-Type: application/x-tar Content-Encoding: x-gzip Note carefully that some browsers will now un-encode the file prior to writing it to disk (ie, fred.tar.gz will now save as the uncompressed fred.tar). You can also configure Apache so that .gz.asc and .bz2.asc are a special case prior to .asc. # PGP <IfModule mod_mime.c> AddType application/pgp-signature .sig .tar.gz.asc .tar.bz2.asc ... </IfModule> <IfModule mod_autoindex.c> AddDescription "PGP signature" .sig .tar.gz.asc .tar.bz2.asc ... </IfModule> # Text <IfModule mod_mime.c> AddType text/plain .txt .asc ... </IfModule> <IfModule mod_autoindex.c> AddDescription "Text document" .txt .asc ... </IfModule> -- Glen Turner -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html