diff --git a/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/http/netty/ESHttpContentDecompressor.java b/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/http/netty/ESHttpContentDecompressor.java
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..79e845606c9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/http/netty/ESHttpContentDecompressor.java
@@ -0,0 +1,51 @@
+/*
+ * Licensed to Elasticsearch under one or more contributor
+ * license agreements. See the NOTICE file distributed with
+ * this work for additional information regarding copyright
+ * ownership. Elasticsearch licenses this file to you under
+ * the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may
+ * not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+ * You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
+ * software distributed under the License is distributed on an
+ * "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
+ * KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
+ * specific language governing permissions and limitations
+ * under the License.
+ */
+
+package org.elasticsearch.http.netty;
+
+import org.elasticsearch.transport.TransportException;
+import org.jboss.netty.buffer.ChannelBuffer;
+import org.jboss.netty.handler.codec.embedder.DecoderEmbedder;
+import org.jboss.netty.handler.codec.http.HttpContentDecompressor;
+import org.jboss.netty.handler.codec.http.HttpHeaders;
+
+public class ESHttpContentDecompressor extends HttpContentDecompressor {
+    private final boolean compression;
+
+    public ESHttpContentDecompressor(boolean compression) {
+        super();
+        this.compression = compression;
+    }
+
+    @Override
+    protected DecoderEmbedder<ChannelBuffer> newContentDecoder(String contentEncoding) throws Exception {
+        if (compression) {
+            // compression is enabled so handle the request according to the headers (compressed and uncompressed)
+            return super.newContentDecoder(contentEncoding);
+        } else {
+            // if compression is disabled only allow "indentity" (uncompressed) requests
+            if (HttpHeaders.Values.IDENTITY.equals(contentEncoding)) {
+                // nothing to handle here
+                return null;
+            } else {
+                throw new TransportException("Support for compressed content is disabled. You can enable it with http.compression=true");
+            }
+        }
+    }
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/http/netty/NettyHttpServerTransport.java b/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/http/netty/NettyHttpServerTransport.java
index 41ad895daf2..d34d97c8510 100644
--- a/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/http/netty/NettyHttpServerTransport.java
+++ b/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/http/netty/NettyHttpServerTransport.java
@@ -37,14 +37,16 @@ import org.elasticsearch.common.unit.ByteSizeValue;
 import org.elasticsearch.common.util.BigArrays;
 import org.elasticsearch.common.util.concurrent.EsExecutors;
 import org.elasticsearch.http.*;
-import org.elasticsearch.http.HttpRequest;
 import org.elasticsearch.monitor.jvm.JvmInfo;
 import org.elasticsearch.transport.BindTransportException;
 import org.jboss.netty.bootstrap.ServerBootstrap;
 import org.jboss.netty.channel.*;
 import org.jboss.netty.channel.socket.nio.NioServerSocketChannelFactory;
 import org.jboss.netty.channel.socket.oio.OioServerSocketChannelFactory;
-import org.jboss.netty.handler.codec.http.*;
+import org.jboss.netty.handler.codec.http.HttpChunkAggregator;
+import org.jboss.netty.handler.codec.http.HttpContentCompressor;
+import org.jboss.netty.handler.codec.http.HttpRequestDecoder;
+import org.jboss.netty.handler.codec.http.HttpResponseEncoder;
 import org.jboss.netty.handler.timeout.ReadTimeoutException;
 
 import java.io.IOException;
@@ -359,9 +361,7 @@ public class NettyHttpServerTransport extends AbstractLifecycleComponent<HttpSer
                 requestDecoder.setMaxCumulationBufferComponents(transport.maxCompositeBufferComponents);
             }
             pipeline.addLast("decoder", requestDecoder);
-            if (transport.compression) {
-                pipeline.addLast("decoder_compress", new HttpContentDecompressor());
-            }
+            pipeline.addLast("decoder_compress", new ESHttpContentDecompressor(transport.compression));
             HttpChunkAggregator httpChunkAggregator = new HttpChunkAggregator((int) transport.maxContentLength.bytes());
             if (transport.maxCompositeBufferComponents != -1) {
                 httpChunkAggregator.setMaxCumulationBufferComponents(transport.maxCompositeBufferComponents);