diff --git a/phpBB/includes/page_header.php b/phpBB/includes/page_header.php
index 165d5566de..24dcf19ee8 100644
--- a/phpBB/includes/page_header.php
+++ b/phpBB/includes/page_header.php
@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@ define(HEADER_INC, TRUE);
 //
 // gzip_compression
 //
+$do_gzip_compress = FALSE;
 if($board_config['gzip_compress'])
 {
 	$phpver = phpversion();
@@ -40,10 +41,14 @@ if($board_config['gzip_compress'])
 	}
 	else if($phpver > "4.0")
 	{
-		// It would be nice if we
-		// used output buffering here 
-		// to allow compression for
-		// versions < 4.0.4pl1
+		if(strstr($HTTP_SERVER_VARS['HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING'], 'gzip'))
+		{ 
+			$do_gzip_compress = TRUE;
+			ob_start();
+			ob_implicit_flush(0); 
+
+			header("Content-Encoding: gzip"); 
+		}
 	}
 }
 
diff --git a/phpBB/includes/page_tail.php b/phpBB/includes/page_tail.php
index 4c22747ce1..0d154a1df5 100644
--- a/phpBB/includes/page_tail.php
+++ b/phpBB/includes/page_tail.php
@@ -53,6 +53,27 @@ $totaltime = ($endtime - $starttime);
 
 printf("<center><font size=-2>phpBB Created this page in %f seconds.</font></center>", $totaltime);
 
+//
+// Compress buffered output if required
+// and send to browser
+//
+if($do_gzip_compress)
+{
+	$gzip_contents = ob_get_contents(); 
+	ob_end_clean(); 
+
+	$gzip_size = strlen($gzip_contents); 
+	$gzip_crc = crc32($gzip_contents); 
+
+	$gzip_contents = gzcompress($gzip_contents, 9); 
+	$gzip_contents = substr($gzip_contents, 0, strlen($gzip_contents) - 4); 
+
+	echo "\x1f\x8b\x08\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00"; 
+	echo $gzip_contents; 
+	echo pack("V", $gzip_crc);
+	echo pack("V", $gzip_size);
+}
+
 exit;
 
-?>
+?>
\ No newline at end of file