RFC: Drop `compress` option?

There is a standard way to disable compression support in fetch via Accept-Encoding header (works right now in node-fetch):

const res = await fetch("https://something.com/", {
  headers: { "Accept-Encoding": "identity" }
});

Do we really need a Node-only option here?

[jimmywarting]

I can see a value in keeping this option… specially for those who wish to just proxy/forward a compressed response along. However. I think the name compress is slightly confusing. as the name applies that it should compress something while posting data.

it should be named something else…

• it could be decompress: true.
• or something closer to ‘Accept-Encoding’ and ‘Content-Encoding’ could be decode: true.

[tekwiz]

I disagree that the compress option should be removed, but I do think it should be deprecated and renamed decompress since it controls decompressing the response rather than compressing the request.

Consider the scenario where the developer wants to implement their own decompression algorithm, maybe for coursework experimentation:

const res = await fetch("https://something.com/", {
  headers: {
    'Accept-Encoding': 'deflate'
  },
  compress: false
});

However, it does seem we should consider changing the behavior when setting compress: false to also set Accept-Encoding: identity. Consider this next example – the response body may or may not be compressed since no Accept-Encoding header is sent; however, this is likely not what the developer intended:

const res = await fetch("https://something.com/", {
  compress: false
});

They probably intended this:

const res = await fetch("https://something.com/", {
  headers: {
    'Accept-Encoding': 'identity'
  },
  compress: false
});