wget and curl saving web page as gibberish (encrypted?) When I download ` using either `wget` or `curl`, the result is gibberish/encrypted. Is it possible (and if so what is the correct way) to save that web page (unencrypted / plain HTML) from the command line?

**Executive summary:**

It seems like the downloaded file is compressed and you should decompress it.

**Detailed answer**

Running:


wget


Result with a downloaded `index.html` file

Executing `file` command on the download file shows:


$ file index.html
index.html: gzip compressed data, from Unix


Renaming the file and decompressing it turn it to be HTML document


$ mv index.html index.html.gz
$ gunzip index.html.gz
$ file index.html


> index.html: HTML document, UTF-8 Unicode text, with very long lines, with overstriking

**Extra Info - why wget downloaded a compressed file?**

As explained in How To Optimize Your Site With GZIP Compression:

Instead of downloading a large text file, modern HTTP server/clients uses _Compressed HTTP Response_ which reduce the size of the transfered files.