Using ajax to request gzip compressed data

Question

I'm making an $.ajax call to an endpoint that is responding with gzipped content. For the life of me I cannot figure out how to get it so that the browser sees it that way and can uncompress it. The ajax request I'm making is

$.ajax({
  url: 'http://my.server/compressed.html',
  method: 'post',
  beforeSend: function (request) {
    //request.setRequestHeader("Accept-Encoding", "compress, gzip");
  },
  success: function (data) {
    console.log('success', data);
  },
  error: function ( jqXHR, textStatus, errorThrown ) {
    console.log('error', textStatus, errorThrown);
  }
});

When the success function is triggered, data is just showing as

���1 �PDѽ�:ޏ�$�+A,D����*��w%���T�9�g���1G����h�6��'�nۖ\����~�%^ 

As you can see I've tried setting the 'Accept-Encoding' head but the error I'm getting when I do that is Refused to set unsafe header "Accept-Encoding". I've tried setting headers on the server side as described in this answer PHP Manual GZip Encoding but that didn't help me either. I just don't know what I'm missing. What do I need to include in the $.ajax() request (and possibly the server response) to get it so that the success callback has the uncompressed data?

thnx,
Christoph

Answer 1

derp. I totally missed (and thought I had) the header

header('Content-Encoding: gzip');

Adding that and viola, it works. I'm not bright sometimes...

thnx,
Christoph